Category: English

The night of the network gala, when I was twenty-six, the world I had built shattered in the palm of my hand. I was center stage, the lights blinding, the teleprompter humming. But when I flipped my cue cards to the next segment, the script was gone. In its place was a high-gloss photo of Andrea and her lover. From the first page to the twentieth, it was a curated gallery of betrayal. Every scene, every position, every indignity. The foyer of a boutique hotel, the leather backseat of her SUV, a private balcony overlooking the city… these images didn’t just hurt; they felt like needles driven directly into my retinas. I didn’t stop. Driven by pure muscle memory and a desperate, soaring shot of adrenaline, I finished the broadcast. I didn’t miss a beat. I didn’t stumble. I smiled for the cameras while my soul was being liquidated. The moment the cameras went dark, I bolted. I barely made it to the executive restroom before I collapsed, retching until my lungs burned. In that cold, marble stall, the truth finally crystallized. I was “special” to her, yes. I was the permanent fixture, the anchor. But I would never, ever be her only one. I had fallen for her when I was sixteen. She was seven years my senior, a woman who moved through the world with a terrifying, magnetic grace. I had pursued her with the clumsy, breathless devotion of a boy who didn’t know any better. I remembered the early days—how she’d sigh, peeling my jacket off her shoulders when I tried to look after her, telling me in that patronizing, “big sister” tone to go find a girl my own age. But then, the shift. The night she sat in my lap wearing nothing but one of my button-downs, pulling me into a kiss that tasted like expensive gin and ruined lives. She told me she loved the way I smelled. She said seeing the heartbreak in my eyes that first year had actually hurt her. Ten years had passed since then. In that decade, I watched a rotating door of young, hungry men cycle through her life. I stayed, foolishly believing I was the one she would eventually come home to for good. At sixteen, loving her was like being a moth addicted to the flame. I craved her gaze, her approval, her heat. At twenty-six, in the stinging silence of a bathroom stall, the fire finally went out. After a two-hour closed-door meeting with the station manager, I walked out with my ticket out of the country: a transfer to be a foreign correspondent. … Andrea hadn’t left. She was waiting outside the restroom, leaning against the wall with a practiced elegance, holding a bottle of chilled water. She didn’t apologize. She just slid a black titanium card into my breast pocket. “You were incredible tonight,” she said, her voice like velvet over gravel. “Don’t be too hard on Toby. He’s just a kid.” A few seconds of dead silence stretched between us. I just nodded. I couldn’t trust my voice. She reached up, her long, pale fingers smoothing my hair with a mother’s tenderness. It was the same gesture she used every time she wanted to keep me in line. “Be a good boy,” she whispered. By the time I gathered my dignity and returned to my office, the floor was deserted. The cleaning crew was sweeping up the wreckage of someone’s birthday party. I noticed a sticky note stuck to my monitor: “Hey Adrian! I bought cake for everyone for my birthday. The chocolates are a gift from my girlfriend—she wanted me to thank the team for taking such good care of me. Hope you like them! PS: You were a beast on stage today. A total pro. Andrea says I should learn everything I can from you.” Toby. He was the son of one of Andrea’s biggest investors. He’d slid into a production role six months ago through her influence. She’d asked me to “mentor” him. I lost count of how many fires I’d put out for that boy. And the chocolates—The Nebula Collection. It was a brand Andrea had built for me. A tribute to my late mother’s legacy. Toby wasn’t being oblivious; he was being surgical. He was feeding me my own history to see if I’d choke. When I got home, I stopped at the shoe rack. My slippers were gone. In their place sat a pair of chunky, expensive sneakers that didn’t belong to me. I walked upstairs barefoot, the cold hardwood biting at my soles. I found them in the media room. My mother’s final film was playing on the massive 4K screen. On the sofa, two figures were tangled together, clothes half-discarded, mouths locked in a messy, desperate hunger. “Get out.” My hand was white-knuckled on the door handle, shaking with a rage so cold it felt like ice. Andrea looked up, annoyed by the interruption. She didn’t look guilty; she looked inconvenienced. She reached over and gently straightened Toby’s shirt. “I’ll have the driver take you home,” she told him. Toby pouted, the picture of wounded innocence, but he stood up. “Adrian, man, don’t be mad at Andrea. It’s my fault. I begged her to let me see what a million-dollar sound system felt like.” He looked at the screen, then back at me, a nasty little glint in his eyes. “We got a bit carried away. Your mom, Serena… she was stunning. So much passion in those scenes. I heard she was actually pregnant with you when she filmed this—was it the director’s?” “Toby!” Andrea’s sharp command and my palm connecting with his face happened at the exact same time. Toby staggered back, clutching his cheek. He gave Andrea a watery, pathetic look, then bolted out of the room. Andrea’s face went stone cold. “You shouldn’t have hit him.” Then she turned and chased after him. I walked into the room and picked up the cashmere throw blanket that had been kicked to the floor. It was damp with spilled wine and… other things. After my mother died in that accident, my grandmother used to wrap me in this blanket when the night terrors got too bad. She passed away the morning after she gave it to me. It was the only piece of them I had left. I was in the laundry room trying to scrub the stains out when Andrea walked in. She knelt and slid my slippers onto my feet. “Enough, Adrian. Let the maid handle it tomorrow. Toby didn’t mean it. I’ll make him apologize to you later.” She wrapped her arms around my waist from behind, swaying her body against mine, using that soft, manipulative coo she used when she wanted to play house. “I talked to the station manager. I got you some time off. You said you wanted to go abroad? I’ll go with you.” “Christmas is coming up. The atmosphere in London or Paris will be perfect. We’ll stay as long as you want.” She was being so “sweet,” but I was shivering so hard my teeth rattled. The station manager didn’t waste any time. He knew who signed the checks. I pried her hands off me. I ran downstairs to grab my bag, looking for the divorce papers I’d prepared. They were gone. Andrea stood at the top of the stairs, sighing with the exhaustion of a parent dealing with a toddler. She came down and grabbed my arm. “Adrian, I told you from the start. I’m not wired for traditional romance. I told you that loving me would hurt. You were the one who said you didn’t care.” “I love you. You’re my husband…” She trailed off. The unspoken half of that sentence hung in the air: But I don’t love you enough to be faithful. She pressed my hand against her stomach. “Let’s have a baby on this trip. A fresh start.” It wasn’t a romantic gesture. It was a bribe. Yesterday, those words would have been everything I ever wanted. Now, they made my skin crawl. My stomach was a hollow pit, and my eyes felt like they were bleeding. Andrea’s expression shifted to pity. She rubbed my back. “I’m sorry, honey. If you hate Toby that much, I won’t let him near you again. Okay?” I didn’t say a word. I turned, went into the guest room, and locked the door. The next morning, my phone buzzed with a notification. I had been pulled from the New Year’s Eve Special. My replacement? Toby. My heart dropped into my stomach. A moment later, a string of texts came in from Toby. Apologies first. Then a “vow” to work hard and make me proud. Finally, a request for me to “mentor” him through the script so he wouldn’t let the team down. Andrea walked in with a glass of warm lemon water. I threw the phone at the wall. “Why?” I roared. I scrambled out of bed, trying to find my clothes. “Stop it. You know it’s useless,” she said, pinning me down with a firm hand. “The board already approved the change. It’s done.” All the strength left my body. I felt suddenly, violently ill. “Adrian, you’re burning up.” She pushed me back into the pillows. She made me eat some broth, made me take some pills. Ten minutes later, I threw it all up. I opened the balcony door for air and saw a car pull into the driveway. Toby stepped out, grinning, his arms wide open. Andrea walked down to him. She looked annoyed, but she stepped into his embrace anyway. He wrapped his heavy overcoat around her, pulling her close. Suddenly, he looked up. Straight at the balcony. Our eyes locked. He flashed a brilliant, predatory smile. “It’s freezing out here, Andrea,” he called out, his voice carrying in the crisp air. “You should have worn a coat.” Andrea’s hand disappeared inside his jacket, stroking his chest. “You’re warm enough.” “I’ve got warmer spots. Want to check?” Andrea swiped at him playfully. “Stop being so crude.” Toby laughed, throwing his hands up. “My bad. Punish me later?” She laughed—a genuine, light sound I hadn’t heard in weeks. “Get inside.” That sound hurt worse than the photos. Her heart had moved out years ago; I was just the only one who hadn’t realized the lease was up. I reached for my phone and pulled up a contact with no name—just a string of numbers. My finger hovered over the dial button. A knock at the door. Toby stuck his head in. “Adrian, hey. Sorry to bug you again. Last time, I promise!” “I’m just here to grab the tuxedo for the gala. We’re different sizes, so I need to get it to the tailor ASAP.” I gave him a thin, jagged smile and led him to the walk-in closet. “Wow,” he breathed, looking at the rows of bespoke suits. “These are incredible.” Crrrk— I took a pair of fabric shears and sliced through the shoulder of the tuxedo. His eyes went wide. A split second later, he let out a sharp cry. He grabbed the blade of the shears with his bare hand, a calculated, wicked grin flashing across his face for a heartbeat before he dissolved into tears. Andrea burst in. She saw the shears in my hand, the shredded silk, and Toby’s hand dripping blood onto the white carpet. The fury in her eyes was a physical weight. “Andrea, it’s okay,” Toby sobbed, playing the martyr. “I shouldn’t have come in without asking. Adrian has every right to be pissed.” I laughed. It was a dry, hollow sound. I turned back to the suit and began hacking it into ribbons, the bloody shears shredding the fabric with a rhythmic, violent obsession. I didn’t know who I was hitting anymore. When I finally stopped, I sat on the blood-stained rug amidst a heap of black scrap metal and silk. I felt nothing but a cold, empty static. Andrea walked over and picked up the shears. She wiped the blood off the blade with a piece of the ruined suit, her voice dropping to a terrifying, quiet chill. “You really went too far this time.” She looked down at me, touching my feverish forehead with one hand while her eyes remained vacant. “I like a man who’s a little fragile, Adrian. Red rims around the eyes? That’s hot. but once the tears actually fall… it just looks cheap. It’s ugly.” My breath hitched. I closed my eyes, but I couldn’t stop the two tracks of salt water from staining my face. She pulled her hand away. “Stay here and cool off. Call me when you’re ready to act like an adult.” She packed a bag and left. The house became a tomb. There were guards at the door. I was in a velvet-lined cage. The last time she’d been this angry was years ago, when I’d broken my leg on a remote shoot and finished the job without telling her. By the time I got home, I couldn’t feel my foot. She’d been angry because she was scared for me. She didn’t speak to me for a week. When she finally thawed, she’d tapped my forehead and said, “Do it again, and I’ll lock you in this house forever. I’ve got enough money to keep you as a pet.” I watched the New Year’s broadcast on my phone. Toby was on screen, holding the mic. He looked like a younger, cheaper version of me. Then he turned toward the camera, and the blood drained from my face. Pinned to his lapel was the Silver Crescent. My mother’s brooch. I wore it at every major event. It was my talisman, my bit of luck. I ran to my jewelry box. It was empty. I sprinted downstairs, but the guards blocked the exit. “Sir, please. Don’t make this difficult.” I started laughing. It finally clicked. She hadn’t locked me in to keep me safe. She’d locked me in so I wouldn’t ruin Toby’s big night. I called Andrea. No answer. I sent a voice note, my voice shaking with pure, unadulterated hate: “Give it back. Give me the brooch back, Andrea!” Nothing. Toby flubbed the broadcast. He messed up the sponsors’ names, then misidentified a major pop star. By the time the show ended, the “Toby is a Disaster” hashtag was trending. Immediately, the network’s PR team started leaking photos of his “heroic” injury—his bandaged hand, the blood on the mic. They framed him as a dedicated professional working through the pain. After the show, Toby posted a photo on Instagram. He was posing with a young fan—a girl from a local charity. The Silver Crescent was pinned to her dress. His text followed seconds later: “Hope you don’t mind me paying it forward, Adrian! The kid loved it. Her eyes lit up. Andrea said she’d buy you a new one. I promise I won’t steal the next one.” The blanket was ruined. The brooch was gone. My chest felt like it was being crushed by a glacier. Two hours later, I logged onto my verified Twitter account and posted a long-form thread. It was a scorched-earth confession. Within ten minutes, it had ten thousand retweets. #TobyTheThief was number one. But within the hour, the thread vanished. My account was suspended. “Violating terms of service regarding harassment.” I called every contact I had in the media. One old friend finally whispered the truth. “Adrian, Andrea made the calls. No one is touching this.” I collapsed onto the sofa. I didn’t even have the energy to be angry. I was a ghost in my own life. The final insult came three hours later on the late-night entertainment news: “Renowned host Adrian Winston is taking an indefinite hiatus due to ongoing mental health struggles. Industry insiders urge fans to respect his privacy as he seeks treatment…” She was erasing me. Late that night, Andrea returned. She held out a box containing an antique brooch—Andrean, rare, worth fifty times what my mother’s was. “Stop sulking,” she said. “Toby was wrong to take it. I’ve dealt with him.” I took the brooch and ran the pin along my thumb until a bead of blood appeared. I kept pushing. I felt nothing. “Adrian!” Andrea grabbed my hand, her voice rising in frustration. “How long are you going to keep this up? Talk to me!” Before I could answer, Toby burst into the room. He threw himself onto his knees. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! I shouldn’t have pushed it. I won’t cross the line again, Adrian.” “I don’t care about the job. I just want to be near Andrea. Even if it’s just once a week, once a month… I just need her.” I knew Andrea’s face. She looked annoyed, but beneath that, I saw the flicker of ego-stroking pleasure. Toby was crying—the exact “cheap” look she claimed to hate, yet she was reaching out to him. I hauled off and punched Toby square in the jaw. Then, I took the antique brooch and dragged the pin across his cheek. Andrea screamed. “Adrian! You’ve lost your mind!” She slapped me. Hard. I threw the expensive piece of jewelry against the marble floor and let out a scream that had been ten years in the making. “Ten years, Andrea! I went from a boy who would have died for you to a dog in your cage! You think this scrap metal makes us even?” She stared at me, shocked. It was the first time I had ever truly defied her. She looked into my bloodshot eyes and her voice went cold. “You’re not being a good boy anymore.” I flinched. It was a reflex. She signaled the guards. They pinned me to the floor. Andrea walked over to the mahogany display rack and pulled out a golf club—a vintage iron. “Adrian, have I spoiled you so much that you’ve forgotten who owns this house?” The club whistled through the air and slammed into my back. The pain was a white-hot explosion. I bit my tongue so hard I tasted copper, but I didn’t give her a sound. “Are you sorry?” I hissed through gritted teeth. “What did I do wrong?” She swung again, catching my shoulder blade. “Why did you cut his face? Why did you go to the press? Your jealousy almost ruined him.” Third strike. My ribs. “Why can’t you learn? You’re twenty-six, not sixteen!” She stopped, breathing hard, waiting for me to beg. I didn’t. “Adrian?” She realized something was wrong. She touched my forehead. “Why are you so hot? Adrian, look at me. Say something!” I looked through her. The silence took me. The last time this happened was when my grandmother died. I ran to the neighbors to get help, but after I said “Grandma,” my voice simply vanished. It stayed gone for three years. In the fourth year, Andrea had a horrific car accident. She was in a coma for a week. I sat by her bed and whispered her name, and the sound finally broke through. She opened her eyes at that exact moment. “There’s my boy,” she’d said. I woke up in a private hospital wing. Andrea was there. She pressed the Silver Crescent into my hand. “I got it back, Adrian. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.” “When you’re ready to go back to work, Toby will be gone. I won’t see him again.” I gripped the brooch. I closed my eyes. It didn’t matter. I had already signed my resignation letter. Her phone started ringing—a relentless, demanding buzz. She looked at me, then at the phone, and stepped out into the hall to take it. When she came back, the bed was empty. My wedding ring was sitting alone on the pillow.

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When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the very first day I received that mysterious deposit. It all started when I was at my lowest—broke, hungry, and wondering if I’d be evicted by the end of the week. Then, a single dollar appeared in my bank account. I remember thinking it was a glitch or perhaps some anonymous soul throwing a penny into my wishing well. I didn’t waste time questioning it; I used that dollar to buy a pack of instant ramen just to stop the cramping in my stomach. But the next day, the balance grew to two dollars. On the third day, it was four. By the fifteenth day, the number on my screen had ballooned into a staggering $32,768. That was the moment the reality of the situation hit me like a physical blow. The money was doubling every twenty-four hours. This wasn’t a “gift” from a friend; nobody I knew had that kind of capital or that kind of sense of humor. Terrified of the legal implications, I stopped spending. I practically sprinted to the bank, my heart hammering against my ribs, demanding to know where the wire transfers were coming from. The teller looked at me like I was delusional. She told me my balance was zero. No deposits, no withdrawals, no history. “That’s impossible!” I shouted, shoving my phone in her face to show her the mobile app. She just sighed, flagged a security guard, and had me escorted out as if I were some junkie playing a prank. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. The app updated every day at midnight like clockwork. I tried tracing the source, but there was no routing number, no note—just a void where the sender’s name should be. That night, exactly at midnight, I was frantically scrolling through my contacts, trying to see if any old college friend had hit the jackpot and decided to play benefactor. Suddenly, a cold, sharp pressure bloomed in my chest. My heart skipped a beat, then another, before stumbling into a rhythm that felt like death. I collapsed onto my bed, the world fading to black before I could even scream. 1. A single dollar. It was there again, staring at me from the screen of my cracked smartphone. The exact same starting point as my previous life. No sender info. No paper trail. Just the money. In that first life, I was too desperate to be suspicious. I was sick, out of work, and living in a damp basement apartment in South Philly. I didn’t have the luxury of wondering who was playing God with my bank account; I just needed to eat. I figured someone had just typed in the wrong account number. After all, what’s a dollar? Then came the two dollars. I started to romanticize it. I thought maybe it was some eccentric philanthropist who knew I was struggling and wanted to help in a way that felt like a game. By the third day, it was four dollars. It kept growing. I felt a surge of profound gratitude. This “miracle” allowed me to finally pay off my medical bills and keep my treatment going. My health improved, but it was quickly replaced by a new, suffocating kind of anxiety. I had assumed the charity would cap out at a few thousand. But by the fourteenth day, when the balance crossed the ten-thousand-dollar mark, the scale changed. I told myself I’d work hard and pay it back eventually. After a brief internal struggle, I used the money to claw my way out of that basement. I signed a lease on a sun-drenched apartment and bought a few professional outfits, ready to restart my life. Then, the fifteenth day hit. Thirty-two thousand dollars. I couldn’t breathe. My family was gone, my parents passed away years ago, and my remaining relatives treated me like a leper. I didn’t have “rich” friends. Who would do this? Why this specific pattern? The uncertainty drove me to the bank, where the horror truly began. The bank insisted my balance was zero. But the money was real—I had spent it. I had paid the hospital, the landlord, the boutiques. If the money didn’t exist, how were those transactions cleared? I went home and started calling everyone I ever knew, desperate for an answer. I never finished the list. At the stroke of midnight, my heart simply stopped. As I sat there now, reliving the memory of that phantom pain, a terrifying realization began to take shape in my mind. The reason I died… was likely because I hadn’t spent every last cent. 2. For the first fourteen days, I had emptied the account. But on the fifteenth day, when that thirty-two thousand arrived, I froze. I was too scared to touch it. And at midnight, I was punished. Was this some kind of twisted gift from a higher power? A “Brewster’s Millions” scenario where the price of the windfall was total consumption? If I didn’t spend it, did I forfeit my life? “No,” I whispered, shaking my head to clear the fog. “That’s insane.” I’m a pragmatist. I don’t believe in urban legends or digital ghosts. There had to be a logical explanation. My plan was simple: use the money to get healthy again, and then, before the numbers became astronomical, find the person behind the curtain. By the thirteenth day of this new life, the balance hit $8,192. This time, I didn’t spend it on fluff. I drove to a bank on the other side of the city—a small branch where nobody knew me. I had a nagging suspicion that the staff at my local branch in my last life had been lying to me. “Hi, I’d like to check my balance, please,” I said, keeping my voice steady. I didn’t mention the “miracle.” I wanted to see what their system showed first. The teller tapped a few keys, her expression neutral. “Ms. Lane, it looks like this account has a zero balance.” My blood ran cold. “Zero? Are you sure? Could you check for pending deposits?” “Nothing,” she said firmly. “According to our records, the last transaction on this account was back in early March when you withdrew your final twenty dollars. There hasn’t been a cent moved since.” I stood there, paralyzed. Early March. The day before the first dollar appeared. That meant every deposit and every purchase I had made over the last two weeks existed entirely outside the banking system. How was that possible? Who has the power to bypass the federal banking infrastructure? I demanded to see the manager. I caused a scene. But no matter who looked at the screen, the answer was the same: Zero. I became convinced it was a conspiracy. The bank had to be in on it. They were gaslighting me. I called the police, right there in the lobby. But after they ran their preliminary check, they treated me like a psychiatric case. They escorted me out with a warning: if I came back to “harass” the staff again, I’d be facing a disorderly conduct charge. I felt a deep, hollow sense of dread. If science and the law couldn’t explain the money, then I was playing by different rules. Rules that ended in a body bag if I failed to follow them. I didn’t gamble. I spent the eight thousand dollars as fast as I could—donations, high-end electronics, anything to hit zero. Only then did I allow myself to breathe. That night, I sat down with a calculator. If this continued, by the twentieth day, the daily deposit would be over a million dollars. I could buy a house to clear that. But what about after that? Could I buy a whole city block? By the end of the second month, the amount would exceed the national debt. It would be impossible to spend. If the rule was “spend it or die,” I was already a dead woman walking. I felt a shiver crawl up my spine. Unless the theory is wrong, I told myself. Unless there is a person—a human being—pulling these strings. I dug my nails into my palms until I broke the skin. I had to stay sharp. I went back to my list of contacts, more determined than ever. On the seventeenth day, I finally found a name that made sense. 3. Beatrice Whitmore. We had been neighbors growing up, the kind of best friends who shared every secret and a blood-oath of sisterhood. But after my parents’ business collapsed and they committed suicide, I was shuffled off to distant relatives in another state. We hadn’t spoken since middle school. I’d recently seen her name in the business section. She’d made a fortune in European tech and had started investing back in the States last year. Out of everyone I knew, she was the only one with the resources to pull this off. But why? If she wanted to help me, why the doubling game? Why did I die in my first life? Was my death the goal? If this was a conspiracy, what could she possibly want from a girl who had nothing but a pile of medical debt and a haunted past? I couldn’t find an answer, but she was my only lead. I tried her office number—blocked. I went to her corporate headquarters, but the receptionist told me Ms. Whitmore was “unavailable” to see me. That meant one of two things: either she’d forgotten I existed, or she was terrified of looking me in the eye. I played it cool. I used the doubling money—now in the hundreds of thousands—to buy a sleek, nondescript SUV and spent my days staked out across from her office. Finally, I saw her. I followed her car to a private bank—the same one I had visited in my first life. I watched through the window as the manager practically bowed to her. That was the confirmation I needed. The bank wasn’t a glitch; it was an accomplice. They were erasing the trail for her. As she walked out toward her car, I didn’t hesitate. I lunged forward, blocking her path. “Beatrice! Why are you doing this?” I screamed, grabbing her by the lapels of her designer coat. I searched her face for a flicker of guilt, for the girl I used to know. She looked startled, then annoyed. “Cassie? Cassie Lane?” She pulled back, smoothing her coat. “You’ve lost your mind. What on earth are you talking about?” “The money! The deposits! Why are you messing with my head?” I pointed at the bank manager who had rushed out to assist her. “How much did you pay them to lie to me? To tell me my balance is zero while you pump millions into my account?” The manager didn’t even let Beatrice answer. He grabbed my arm, shoving me back with enough force to make me stumble. “You’re delusional,” the manager spat. “Ms. Whitmore is here on high-level corporate business. You? You’re a girl who couldn’t even afford her own antibiotics a month ago. You think a woman like her has time to play games with a charity case like you?” Beatrice sighed, reaching into her Birkin bag. She pulled out a roll of hundred-dollar bills and tossed them at my feet. “Look, Cassie. I get it. You heard I was back in town and you’re desperate. You want to cash in on a friendship that ended fifteen years ago? Fine. Take the cash and get lost. That’s all our ‘history’ is worth to me.” She turned and climbed into her town car without a backward glance. I stood there, fists clenched, watching the red glow of her taillights. I was more certain now than ever. Beatrice was the one. Because the manager had said something he shouldn’t have known. “A girl who couldn’t even afford her own antibiotics a month ago.” In this life, I hadn’t been to this bank. I hadn’t told anyone about my illness here. How did he know I was sick? There was only one way. They had been watching me. 4. Once the adrenaline faded, the fear went with it. I’ve spent my whole life being afraid—of poverty, of sickness, of the end. But now that the monster had a face, I could fight back. If Beatrice wanted to play, I’d play. I would spend every cent she threw at me until she ran dry. “Dr. Lowery, I’m putting you on a ten-thousand-dollar daily retainer,” I told the physician I’d recruited from out of state. “Your only job is to test every drop of water and every scrap of food that enters this house. I want to know the second you detect a toxin.” By the twenty-first day, the deposit was over two million dollars. I bought a fortress of a house, upgraded the security to military grade, and locked myself in. I had chemical sensors and a private doctor who was forbidden from contacting the outside world. If Beatrice wanted me dead, she wasn’t going to get me with a “sudden” heart attack this time. Every day, I spent. Day twenty-two: Five million dollars. I bought art, jewelry, and offshore gold, ensuring the balance hit zero before the clock struck midnight. I was convinced Beatrice was reaching her breaking point. No matter how rich you are, liquidating tens of millions in cash every few days is a nightmare. But by day twenty-four, when the balance hit nearly twenty million, my confidence began to crumble. How could one person have this much liquidity? Even for a tech mogul, this was an impossible amount of cash to move anonymously. Was I really worth this much to her? At 2:00 AM, unable to sleep, I slipped out of the house. I drove three hours to a tiny, rural town and found a local credit union. I bribed a late-night IT contractor with fifty thousand dollars to let me look at the raw data in the federal system for my account. I typed in my ID and my account number. The screen blinked. Balance: $0.00. My heart stopped. The managers hadn’t been bought. The system wasn’t being manipulated by Beatrice. The money… it really didn’t exist in the physical world. But if the money was “magic” or “supernatural,” then why did the bank manager know about my medical history? I felt like my brain was fracturing. If the money wasn’t Beatrice’s, then my first death wasn’t a murder—it was a systemic erasure. A rule of the universe. I frantically refreshed the page. Before I could see more, the contractor pulled me away. “Someone’s coming, you gotta go!” On the drive back, I looked at the twenty-million-dollar figure on my phone. Despair washed over me. How do you spend twenty million in a day? I started buying luxury yachts online, donating to every GoFundMe I could find. But the sheer volume was too much. The “System” was flagging me. I got a call from a federal agent. I hung up. I didn’t care about jail; I cared about midnight. Bang! Bang! Bang! The sound of the front door being kicked in echoed through the house. I checked the monitors. Men in uniforms. Panic seized me. I ran to the storage room, tripping over a stack of boxes. Junk spilled everywhere. And there, glinting under the harsh fluorescent light, was a small plastic card I hadn’t seen in years. I froze. I picked it up, then looked at my phone. The pieces finally clicked, and the horror of it nearly made me vomit.

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I will never forget the spectacle of my own ruined wedding. It was supposed to be the day my wife and I finally had the grand ceremony we never got. The guests had arrived, the Hamptons estate was draped in thousands of white hydrangeas, and the champagne was already flowing. But the bride was nowhere to be found. Just as the officiant began dabbing his sweating forehead, the estate manager boxed me in with a dozen security guards. He informed me, loudly, that the bride had just canceled all the wire transfers. I was suddenly on the hook for an eight-million-dollar venue fee. But the true devastation came moments later, when the massive LED screens behind the altar flickered to life. It wasn’t a slideshow of our memories. It was a live video of my wife, cruising down a sun-drenched coastline in a convertible with her first love. Through the towering speakers, she laughed into the camera, declaring that since I had humiliated her “golden boy” at the dealership, she was going to let me taste what it felt like to be abandoned on the most important day of my life. The dealership incident had happened months ago. She had secretly drained my personal accounts to pay for her ex’s supposed “psychological therapy.” Instead, the guy had marched straight into a Porsche dealership. When I found out, I called the bank, reported the fraud, and had the luxury car repossessed right as the salesman was handing him the keys. When she came home that night, she had hugged me. She’d praised my financial prudence, whispering that we shouldn’t encourage such vanity. Now, standing at the altar, I realized every single word had been a performance. 1 “You can stop staring at the door, groom. Vicky isn’t coming.” Brad, the estate manager, stepped into my line of sight. He wore a crisp suit and a smile that dripped with professional malice. My limbs felt like lead as I stood in the dead center of the Grand Ballroom at Crestview Estate. We were surrounded by New York’s elite, standing on a carpet of imported white petals. It was supposed to be the wedding of the season. It certainly was the spectacle of the season. Just not the kind I had planned. My knuckles turned white as I gripped my darkened phone. “What exactly are you saying, Brad?” Brad snapped his fingers. A dozen security guards, hands resting menacingly on their batons, tightened the circle around me. “Mrs. Ellsworth just withdrew every cent of the advance payments. She left specific instructions. Since you were the one who insisted on this little vow renewal…” Brad pulled a folded invoice from his breast pocket and flicked it open. “The venue, the catering, the floral arrangements, the staff. It comes to eight million dollars.” He shoved the paper at my chest. “And Mrs. Ellsworth said you’re footing the bill.” A collective gasp rippled through the ballroom. The whispers began immediately, sharp and stinging as they crawled into my ears. “God, Vicky is ruthless. A runaway bride on the day of the vow renewal?” “Well, look at him. He’s a nobody. A charity case she took in. He had no business marrying into the Ellsworth family.” “Eight million? You could sell his organs and he wouldn’t have enough.” I took a slow, agonizing breath, forcing the rising panic down into the pit of my stomach. “I need to speak with Vicky.” Brad scoffed. “Speak with the CEO? You think you still have that kind of access?” He turned and pointed toward the massive screens above the stage. “She knew you’d be pathetic about this. She left you a message.” The screen flickered. A bright, high-definition image filled the room. The backdrop was the endless, glittering blue of the Mediterranean. Vicky was lounging on the deck of a yacht, wearing a silk cover-up and oversized sunglasses, a flute of vintage champagne dangling from her fingers. And tucked securely under her arm was a man. Timothy. The tragic first love. The one with the “severe anxiety.” The one who had tried to steal my money for a sports car. The ocean breeze caught Timothy’s hair as he laughed—a loud, brazen sound—draping his entire body over my wife. Vicky’s voice boomed through the ballroom’s state-of-the-art acoustics, shaking the floorboards. “Nicholas, Timothy has been suffering from severe PTSD ever since you called the cops on him at the dealership. My therapist said he needs a change of scenery to heal. I have to be here for him.” She took a sip of champagne, her lips curling into a smirk. “As for the wedding? Figure it out yourself.” 2 On the screen, Timothy leaned in, batting his eyelashes as he pressed a kiss to Vicky’s cheek. “Vic, honey, isn’t Nicholas going to be a little embarrassed standing all by himself in front of those people?” Vicky stroked his jaw, her eyes full of sickening fondness. “Oh, his skin is thick enough. He’ll survive.” The video cut to black. For a fraction of a second, the ballroom was as quiet as a tomb. Then, the dam broke. A tidal wave of mocking laughter crashed over me. I saw the flashes of a hundred smartphone cameras going off. Off to the side, I spotted a couple of lifestyle influencers speaking frantically into their live streams. “Oh my god, you guys, absolute Hamptons meltdown! The billionaire bride just ditched her stay-at-home husband for her ex! He owes eight million dollars!” Standing under the glaring spotlight in my bespoke tuxedo, I felt like a clown in a circus ring. The sheer, suffocating weight of the humiliation threatened to crush my lungs. Brad signaled the audio tech to cut the house music. He crossed his arms, staring me down. “Enjoy the show? Good. Now, how are you paying?” I clenched my jaw. “I don’t have my cards on me. Let me make a phone call—” “No money?” Brad’s smug smile vanished, replaced by a thuggish sneer. “Then what the hell are you playing at? You think someone like you belongs at Crestview?” He stepped closer, his eyes raking over me, lingering on my lapels. “Mrs. Ellsworth figured you’d try to skip out on the bill. But I see you’re wearing a custom Brioni suit. The diamond cufflinks alone must be worth a few grand.” He snapped his fingers at the guards. “Strip him. Take the suit, the watch, the shoes. Let everyone see what happens to a gold-digger when the ride is over.” The guards laughed, stepping forward, rolling their shoulders. “Back off.” I took a step back, my heart hammering against my ribs. “This is assault. I will call the police.” “The police?” Brad barked a laugh. “Out here in the estates, I am the law. Take it off him! Rip it off if you have to!” A massive guard lunged forward. His calloused hand grabbed the lapel of my jacket and the collar of my silk shirt. Riiiiip. The sickening sound of tearing fabric echoed over the chatter of the crowd. The silk gave way, exposing my chest to the cold air conditioning of the ballroom. A tremor of absolute shame ripped through my body, but I didn’t cry. Tears are the currency of the weak, and right now, I couldn’t afford to be weak. I pivoted, driving the heel of my leather shoe down onto the guard’s foot with crushing force. “Agh!” The guard howled, stumbling backward and clutching his foot. I pulled my torn jacket tight across my chest, my eyes locking onto Brad with a venom that made him flinch. “You think you can touch me, Brad? Even the owner of Crestview wouldn’t dare lay a finger on me. Who the hell do you think you are?” Brad froze for a second before bursting into theatrical laughter. “The owner? Nicholas, have you lost your mind? I answer to no one but the Ellsworths! Mrs. Ellsworth told me to ruin you today, and I’m delivering! You think you’re still the lord of the manor? Without her, you’re less than a stray dog!” Suddenly, the massive LED screen flickered again. This time, it wasn’t pre-recorded. The icon for a live FaceTime call popped up, and Vicky’s face filled the screen. The background was still the yacht, the sound of the churning ocean now a live audio feed. Timothy had changed into designer swimwear. He was curled up against Vicky’s chest, rubbing at his eyes as if he were crying. “Nicholas, I’m so sorry,” Timothy whimpered into the camera. “I just… I couldn’t breathe without Vic. It’s my fault. Don’t be mad at her.” The manipulative, saccharine act made bile rise in my throat. I stared into the camera lens, my voice dropping to a frozen whisper. “Is this really how you want to do this, Vicky? After five years? I built you up from nothing. I stood by you when you were sleeping on the floor of a studio apartment. And you throw it away because he shed a single fake tear?” Vicky scowled, her annoyance radiating through the pixels. “Nicholas, stop being so dramatic. Timothy has severe emotional fragility. As my husband, shouldn’t you be a little more accommodating? Besides, this whole vow renewal was your idea. You wanted to ‘celebrate our journey.’ Now it’s a joke. You brought this on yourself.” The guests muttered among themselves. “She’s awful, but god, he has no spine.” “Right? His wife is literally cuddling her side-piece on screen, and he’s still begging for her love.” Before I could respond, a shadow darted onto the stage. It was my mother-in-law, Margery. A woman who spent her weekends at charity galas preaching about grace, but behind closed doors was the most vicious woman I had ever met. She didn’t hesitate. She raised her hand and struck me across the face. Smack! The blow was heavy, her diamond rings cutting into my cheek. My ear rang, and I tasted the metallic tang of blood in my mouth. “You absolute parasite!” Margery shrieked, pointing a manicured finger at my face. “You couldn’t even keep a woman happy! You’re a disgrace to the Ellsworth name!” She turned to the crowd, playing the victim. “I told her not to marry a charity case! He brought nothing but bad luck to our family! And now look! You drove my daughter away on her special day, and you have the audacity to stand here and whine?” I touched my bleeding lip, staring at the woman I had personally cared for, cooked for, and funded for half a decade. “Margery… she is the one cheating on me.” “Shut your mouth!” Margery snapped. “So what if she is? Vicky is a CEO! She works hard! What have you done? Five years living under our roof, and you haven’t even given her a child! You’re just taking up space!” Brad chimed in, pouring gasoline on the fire. “Mrs. Ellsworth, just so you know, he still owes the estate eight million dollars. Vicky made it very clear the family isn’t paying.” At the mention of money, Margery took three quick steps backward, throwing her hands up. “His debts are his own! The Ellsworths have nothing to do with him!” Brad turned back to me, a cruel grin spreading across his face. “Hear that? You’ve got no one left. But, Vicky left one loophole.” On the screen, Timothy giggled, his eyes flashing with malice. “Vic, he’s so stubborn. A simple apology isn’t going to fix my trauma. I think… I think he needs to clean up his mess. Literally. If he gets down on his knees and licks the spilled wine off the floor, I might find it in my heart to forgive him.” Vicky didn’t miss a beat. “You heard him, Nicholas. Kneel and lick it up, or go to jail for fraud.” The crowd erupted into a sickening chorus of jeers. “Do it! It’s eight million bucks!” “Get on the floor, gold-digger!” Margery lunged forward again, grabbing the back of my neck, trying to physically force me to the floor. “Are you deaf? Kneel down! Apologize to Timothy!” 3 My knees burned with the strain as Margery shoved her weight against my shoulders, but I locked my joints. I kept my spine steel-straight. I refused to bend. The humiliation washed over me like a freezing tide, but as the icy water receded, it took something with it. It washed away the last shred of lingering delusion I had about my wife. In that suffocating silence, beneath the blinding chandeliers, the man who had unconditionally loved Vicky Ellsworth simply ceased to exist. I violently threw off Margery’s hands. The force sent the older woman stumbling backward in her heels until she nearly pitched off the edge of the stage. “You ungrateful wretch! You dare push me?” she shrieked. I ignored her. I raised a hand, wiping the blood from my chin. Whatever tears of betrayal had been threatening my eyes evaporated, replaced by a cold, hollow calm. I looked up, staring directly into Vicky’s digital eyes on the massive screen. “Vicky. Do you honestly believe an eight-million-dollar bill is enough to break me?” Vicky blinked in surprise, then let out a sharp, mocking laugh. “Nicholas, you don’t even have a hundred dollars to your name. Stop pretending. I shut off your credit cards. The money in your personal account went to Timothy’s car. You’re completely broke. You couldn’t even afford an Uber out of here.” I smiled. It was a terrifying, dead thing. I turned to Brad. “Give me ten minutes. If I clear this eight-million-dollar tab, I am going to make you, Vicky, and Timothy pay a price you cannot fathom.” Brad looked at me like I was a psychiatric patient. “Ten minutes? Buddy, you couldn’t scrape that together if you sold both your kidneys.” But Timothy, always eager for more cruelty, leaned into the camera frame. “Oh, I love a bet! If Nicholas can pull eight million dollars out of thin air, I will personally jump off this yacht and swim back to New York!” He paused, his smile turning toxic. “But if you can’t, you strip down to nothing, and you crawl out of this estate on your hands and knees.” “And,” Vicky added smoothly, “you sign a contract to become Timothy’s personal assistant. You will do whatever he says, whenever he says it, without a single complaint.” I gave a slow, deliberate nod. My voice was eerily quiet, yet it carried across the entire room. “Deal. Everyone in this room is my witness. The millions of people watching on those live streams are my witnesses.” The ballroom went electric. This was the kind of unhinged aristocratic drama money couldn’t buy. “Is he clinically insane? Eight million!” “He’s stalling. He’s totally stalling.” “I’ve got my camera ready. He’s gonna be crawling naked in ten minutes.” I tuned out the noise. I walked over to the bewildered officiant, who was still clutching a microphone and his smartphone. “Borrowing this,” I murmured, sliding the phone from his grip. Before he could protest, my fingers flew across the keypad, dialing a number I hadn’t used in five long years. A direct, encrypted line known only to the inner circle of the Beaumont family. It rang exactly once. An older, deeply refined voice answered. The composure was there, but beneath it, I could hear the sharp inhale of shock. “Young Master? Is… is that you?” My grip on the phone tightened. I took a steadying breath to push past the sudden lump in my throat. “Winston. It’s me.” “Sir.” “I’m at the Crestview Estate in the Hamptons. I’m currently surrounded by pests.” I paused, my eyes sweeping over Brad and Margery. “Clear the room.” Even through the cellular static, the sheer, murderous intent that radiated from the old butler was palpable. “Understood, Young Master. Five minutes.” I ended the call and tossed the phone back to the officiant. Brad checked his heavy gold watch, his face twisted in an ugly sneer. “Nine minutes left. Boys, get ready to help the groom out of his clothes. We wouldn’t want him to be late for his crawl.” Margery spat on the floor near my shoes. “Playing pretend! Let’s see who you think you’re calling! When you can’t pay, I’ll skin you alive myself!” I simply crossed my arms over my ruined shirt, leaned back against a floral pillar, and closed my eyes. Let them bark. Let them laugh. Vicky, Timothy, the Ellsworth family. You worship money so blindly? Then I will show you what true, absolute wealth really looks like. 4 The minutes ticked by. Brad began to count down, his voice thick with vicious anticipation. “One minute!” “Thirty seconds!” On the screen, Vicky had already popped a fresh bottle of champagne. Timothy was practically vibrating with glee. “Take it off, Nicky! You’ve got a decent body, don’t be shy!” “Ten seconds!” Brad crumpled the invoice into a ball and threw it at my feet. “Time’s up! Boys, take him down! Strip him!” The security guards, hopped up on adrenaline and cruelty, lunged at me like a pack of starving wolves. Hands reached for my shoulders, fingers clawing at my torn collar. Just as the first hand grazed my skin— FWHUMP-FWHUMP-FWHUMP. A deafening, rhythmic roar erupted from the sky, entirely drowning out the screaming crowd. The massive crystal chandeliers above us began to sway violently. The floor-to-ceiling glass windows vibrated so hard I thought they would shatter. Guests screamed, covering their ears and ducking as they looked toward the sky. Hovering just beyond the glass, hovering over the manicured lawns of the estate, were three military-grade Black Hawk helicopters. The downdraft was tearing the pristine wedding tents to shreds. Emblazoned on the side of the matte-black fuselage of the lead chopper was a single, gleaming gold crest. A stylized letter ‘B’. Thick ropes dropped from the open bays. Dozens of men clad in tactical black gear repelled down in terrifying unison, a scene ripped straight out of a blockbuster thriller. They didn’t even bother with the doors. They breached the terrace windows, stepping through the shattered glass with batons drawn. Crack! Thud! The security guards who had just been inches from my face were suddenly airborne, tackled to the marble floor and pinned with brutal efficiency. Brad didn’t even have time to scream before a tactical boot connected with the back of his knee, sending him crashing to the ground. “Agh! My leg!” Simultaneously, the heavy oak doors of the ballroom were violently shoved open. A convoy of five midnight-black Rolls-Royce Phantoms glided into the courtyard outside, their presence suffocating and regal. The license plates were low-number diplomatic and elite state plates. Untouchable. The socialites in the room were backing away in sheer terror, pressing themselves against the walls. “What… what is happening?” “That crest… That’s the Beaumont crest. The Manhattan real estate billionaires!” “Why is the Beaumont family here? Who the hell did this guy piss off?!” On the screen, Vicky had gone pale. The champagne flute slipped from her fingers, spilling across her silk wrap. “Are those… Beaumont vehicles?” But Timothy clapped his hands, giggling hysterically. “I knew it! Nicholas borrowed money from loan sharks and pissed off the Beaumonts! They’re here to execute him! Oh, babe, this is the best day ever!” The center Phantom rolled to a smooth stop. The rear door opened. An older gentleman stepped out. He was dressed in an immaculate three-piece suit, exuding an aura of absolute authority. He ignored the screaming billionaires, the broken glass, and the weeping guards. He walked in a perfectly straight line toward the center of the room. Toward me. It was Winston, the Chief of Staff for Beaumont Holdings. Under the terrified gaze of five hundred guests, Winston stopped three feet away from me. He meticulously adjusted his cuffs, and then bowed—a deep, perfect ninety-degree bow. His voice was clear, echoing through the stunned silence. “Young Master Nicholas. I apologize for my delay. I trust you are unharmed?” The entire ballroom stopped breathing.

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The wedding was less than twenty-four hours away, but there I was, standing in the hallway of a luxury condo I’d found through a last-minute listing. The price had just plummeted, and in this market, I couldn’t afford not to look. The door opened to reveal a woman who was young, radiant, and glowing with a flush that hadn’t come from a bottle. “Sorry to keep you waiting,” she said, smoothing her silk robe. She offered a small, knowing smile. “My husband insisted on a FaceTime call. We got a little… distracted.” She led me into the living room, her voice a steady stream of sweet, casual complaints about him. She told me how he’d just bought a massive penthouse uptown—insisting they needed floor-to-ceiling windows for “the right romantic atmosphere”—which made this place redundant. That was why she was selling it so cheap. I was about to offer a polite compliment about how attentive her husband sounded when my breath caught. My entire world narrowed down to a single point on the gallery wall. There, framed in heavy gold, was a wedding portrait. The man in the photo, wearing a smile I had woken up to for seven years, was Simon. The same Simon who was supposed to stand at the altar with me tomorrow. In that heartbeat, the blood in my veins turned to ice. My hands went numb, the keys in my pocket feeling like lead. 1 She noticed me staring. A prideful, shimmering laugh escaped her lips. “He’s handsome, isn’t he? Simon practically chased me for six months before I said yes.” Chloe—I remembered her name from the listing now—stroked the edge of the frame. “He bought me this place as a ‘thank you’ for finally agreeing to be his. The deed is entirely in my name. Cash closing.” I nodded, my brain stuttering. I remembered a stretch of time last year when Simon, a man who usually lived in wrinkled flannels, suddenly started obsessing over his skin-care routine and tailored shirts. I’d teased him about having a mid-life crisis. I didn’t realize he was playing the role of the smitten suitor for a girl ten years younger than me. I didn’t realize he’d already walked down an aisle. Chloe adjusted her robe, but not before I saw the dark, blooming bruises of love bites across her collarbone. “Don’t let the suit fool you,” she whispered, her eyes dancing with a cruel sort of intimacy. “He’s a beast in bed. Half the time, I can’t even make it out of the house the next morning.” I blinked, my eyes stinging. I looked around the room. It was filled with ghosts of a life I thought was mine. The plush velvet sofa was the exact model Simon and I had looked at, the one he said was ‘too expensive’ for our tiny rental. The espresso machine, the organic linen throws—everything in this high-end condo was a premium version of the life we shared in our 500-square-foot walk-up. It hit me then, a dull ache behind my ribs: my life was just the low-budget rehearsal for this. While I was staying up late worrying about his “business trips” and “overtime shifts,” he was here, cocooned in luxury with his secret bride. “Here,” Chloe said, handing me a folder. “You can check the title. Simon said he wanted us to have a ‘real’ marital home, but he knew I needed to feel secure, so he put his savings into this for me.” I opened the folder. The date on the purchase agreement felt like a physical blow to the stomach. Two years ago. Right after our engagement. We had saved every penny for a down payment. Then, Simon had come home looking devastated, telling me a “crypto investment” had wiped him out. I didn’t hesitate. I gave him my entire savings to help him “settle the debt.” I worked three jobs to make up the difference. I worked until I was so exhausted I miscarried our first child at eight weeks. And all that time, my money—our “future”—was paying for Chloe’s security. Two years. Seven hundred and thirty days of lies. Enough time for a child to have been born and taken its first steps. “Ma’am?” A housekeeper appeared at the kitchen island, her voice soft. “Mr. Sterling insisted you eat before he gets back. For the baby.” Chloe turned to me, a dainty, apologetic smile on her face. “Sorry. I’m three months along, and Simon is absolutely neurotic about my nutrition. He’s obsessed.” My voice came out like gravel. “You’re… pregnant?” She rubbed her belly, her expression softening into something genuinely maternal. “Thirteen weeks. He cried when I told him. He’s already picked out a nickname. Peanut.” Peanut. When I was pregnant, Simon had spun me around the kitchen, crying with joy. He’d spent nights scrolling through baby name sites. When I lost the baby, he’d held me in the hospital bed, sobbing that “we’d have another chance.” He wasn’t wrong. The chance had come. It just wasn’t for me. He’d even stolen the nickname we had picked out in the dark of our bedroom and gifted it to her. The front door clicked. “Chloe? Did Peanut let you sleep in today, or was he—” Simon stopped dead. The color drained from his face, a flicker of raw panic crossing his features before his mask slammed back into place. He walked right past me as if I were a shadow, sitting down next to Chloe and tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “We have company?” he asked, his voice tight. “I told you not to open the door to strangers.” Chloe giggled, looping her arm through his. “She’s here about the listing. See? I told you I could handle the sale myself.” Simon forced a laugh, his eyes never meeting mine. “My girl is the best.” A hollow, echoing void opened up in my chest. Just yesterday, I’d told him I found a great deal on a condo and asked if he wanted to see it. He’d snapped at me, telling me he was too stressed with work to deal with my “fantasies.” I turned and walked out. I didn’t say a word. The winter air hit me like a physical blade. I walked until my face felt frozen, the tears turning into a mask of ice on my cheeks. When I finally got back to our apartment, he was there. Waiting. He stood up as I entered and reached for my hands, trying to tuck them into his chest the way he always did when I was cold. “Maya, you’re freezing. Where have you—” I wrenched my hands away. Looking at the “worry” in his eyes, I started to laugh. It was a jagged, ugly sound. Tears began to splash onto the hardwood. “Maya, don’t,” he whispered, reaching out to wipe my face. He pulled a small box from behind his back—a matcha cake from the bakery I loved. “I only married her because of the baby. You’re the one I want to be with. You’ve always been the one.” I pushed his hand away, my entire body shaking. “The wedding photos are real, Simon. The deed is real. The baby in her stomach is real.” His face hardened. He tossed the cake onto the table, his gaze turning sharp and defensive. “Are you really going to hold this over me? I had to be responsible. I couldn’t let my child be a ‘mistake’ on a birth certificate.” The pain was a white-hot spike. When I was pregnant, I had begged him to just go to the courthouse. I didn’t need a party. I just wanted our baby to have a family. He’d stalled. He’d made excuses. Then the baby was gone, and the “need” for the courthouse vanished. But for Chloe, he couldn’t wait. “She’s been in your life for two years, and she got everything I spent seven years begging for,” I said. “And you’re asking me if I’m ‘holding it over you’?” He let out a frustrated breath and pulled a legal document from his bag. He slid it across the table. “If you want that condo so bad, fine. Sign this. I’m transferring the title to you. Consider it… a settlement.” I looked at the paper. For years, I had obsessively saved every cent for a home. I’d spent nights calculating interest rates, dreaming of what color to paint the nursery. It was the only thing that kept me going through twelve-hour shifts. And now he was handing it to me like a consolation prize. “What were we, Simon?” I choked out. “What were the last seven years?” He rubbed his temples, his voice dripping with an exhausting kind of patience. “Chloe is young. She’s fragile. She needed the security of that house to feel safe with me. You… you were always the strong one, Maya.” I stared at him. “So that was my mistake? Being strong?” He gave me a cold, dismissive look. “Chloe has boundaries. She has self-respect. Our first time was our wedding night. But you? You were in a cheap motel with me when you were twenty. You set the bar low for yourself.” The words felt like a physical assault. I looked at the man I had loved since I was a girl and remembered him crying in that “cheap motel,” holding me and swearing he’d spend the rest of his life making me happy. I had thought it was love. He had thought it was a transaction. He shoved the contract into my hands. “Take the house. Chloe is pregnant. You can scream at me all you want, but don’t you dare go near her again.” Even now, his priority was her peace. His phone buzzed. His expression smoothed into something tender as he glanced at the screen. He grabbed his coat, giving me one last warning look before heading for the door. But the door flew open before he reached it. Chloe stormed in, her face twisted in a mask of rage. She didn’t hesitate—she lunged forward and slapped me so hard my head snapped back. Her designer nails left a row of bleeding gashes on my cheek. “You bitch!” she screamed. “You’re trying to steal my husband?” She blew on her reddened palm, looking at me with pure disgust. “Look at you. You’re pathetic. Look at this dump you live in. You think a man like Simon wants a tired, old secretary when he has me?” I looked at Simon. He was watching her with a terrifyingly fond expression—the same look he’d used when he proposed to me years ago. Now, I was just the background noise in his new life. Chloe grabbed the contract from my hands and tore it into confetti, throwing the pieces in my face. “You’re not getting our house. You’re not getting him.” Simon stepped in then, gently catching her wrists. “Chloe, honey, stop. You’re pregnant. Let’s just go home. Don’t let the neighbors see this… spectacle.” The neighbors. The spectacle. After seven years of building a life together, I was just an “outsider” causing a scene. Chloe sobbed into his chest. “You told me you broke up with this old woman months ago! If I hadn’t followed you today, I wouldn’t have known you were still seeing her.” I looked up, stunned. She had known about me the whole time. She turned her head, looking over Simon’s shoulder to sneer at me. “I know everything, Maya. I know you live like a pauper to save pennies. I know you couldn’t even keep your own baby. A man’s heart is where his money is. Look around this room, then look at my condo. Who do you think he loves?” Simon stiffened. He put a hand over her mouth. “That’s enough.” Chloe wrenched free, her voice shrill. “Why? It’s the truth. He only comes here when he wants a break from the good life. You’re just his bargain-bin habit, Maya.” Simon’s jaw tightened. “I said, enough.” As they left, Chloe paused to flash her marriage license at me like a weapon. “If you have any dignity left, stay away from my husband. Nobody likes a home-wrecker.” The date on the license was the day I had been home on bed rest after my miscarriage. He’d told me he was going out to get groceries to make me soup. Instead, he’d gone to the courthouse to marry her. I sat in the dark until the sun came up. When I walked into the office the next morning, my belongings were scattered across the floor. My desk was plastered with printed signs: HOME-WRECKER. WHORE. My manager threw a termination notice at my feet. “We don’t need this kind of drama, Maya. We’re a family company. Pack your things.” “I didn’t do anything,” I said, my voice hollow. He laughed. “His wife sent a formal complaint. She sent photos. She sent the marriage license. Go home.” The whispers followed me out. She looked so sweet. You never really know people, do you? When I got to my apartment complex, the walls of the lobby were covered in posters with my face on them, detailing my “affair.” I began tearing them down, my fingernails bleeding. Neighbors stood in small groups, pointing and whispering. A man from the third floor stepped into my path, a leering grin on his face. “How much for a night, honey? If you’re giving it away to married guys, I’m sure we can work something out.” “Get away from me!” I screamed. He grabbed my arm, his face turning ugly. “Don’t act like a lady now. I saw the posters.” A hand clamped onto the man’s wrist. I looked up, seeing the familiar red braided bracelet on the newcomer’s arm. “Simon!” I cried, grabbing his sleeve. “Tell them! Tell them we’ve been together for seven years! Tell them I’m not the mistress!” Simon shoved me away. His eyes were burning with a cold, frantic rage. “I told you to stay away from Chloe!” he hissed. “She’s in the hospital because of the stress you caused her! She almost lost the baby today!” “I didn’t do anything to her!” “I don’t care! These posters? This is what happens when you mess with my family. Don’t think your ‘seven years’ gives you the right to harass my wife.” He turned and walked away, his words solidifying the lie for everyone watching. I was the villain. My phone rang. It was my mother, her voice hysterical. “Maya… people are here. They’re outside the house with a megaphone, calling you names… your father… he collapsed. It’s his heart, Maya. We’re in the ER…” The world tilted. I ran for the street, waving down a taxi. I had to get to the station. I had to get home. “Please,” I sobbed to the driver. “Faster. Please.” I saw the semi-truck lose control before I felt it. The roar of twisting metal filled the air. I reached for my phone, my thumb hitting the speed dial. Then, the world went black. Simon was sitting in the hospital cafeteria, picking at a salad while Chloe slept upstairs, when his phone vibrated. An unknown number. He almost ignored it, but something made him swipe right. “Hello?” “Is this… Mr. Matcha?” a voice asked, hesitant. The name hit him like a physical blow. It was the private nickname Maya had given him on their first date at a hole-in-the-wall tea shop. It was the name she used for him in her secondary phone—the one she kept for just the two of them. “Maya?” he gasped.

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Three in the morning. I was a ghost of myself, dragging my body toward my apartment after another soul-crushing shift at the office. The motion-sensor lights in the stairwell were on their last legs, flickering with a dying, stuttering rhythm. I’d barely cleared the first two steps when I heard it: the heavy, rhythmic thud-thud of footsteps behind me. My heart didn’t just beat; it lunged into my throat. I white-knuckled the strap of my laptop bag and bolted upward. The strange thing was, those heavy steps only followed for a flight or two. Then, they stopped. In their place came the sharp, elegant clack-clack-clack of high heels hitting the concrete. “Just a neighbor,” I whispered, a desperate prayer to the empty air. I forced my breathing to slow, fumbling in my bag for my keys. That’s when the world broke. Translucent lines of text began to drift across my vision, glowing like a low-latency Twitch stream. [Look! There she is! The lead in that legendary cold case!] [Don’t stop, you idiot! Run! The killer is right behind you! He’s got heels on his hands to mimic a woman’s walk!] [Women living alone have zero survival instincts. Walking home solo in the middle of the night? She’s practically asking for a target on her back.] 1 I froze. My brain stalled, trying to process the impossible subtitles hovering in the air. Was I… the victim they were talking about? Before I could wrap my head around the “how,” the clicking of those heels grew louder. Closer. Rapid. I didn’t stay to find out. I sprinted the last half-flight, dove into my apartment, and slammed the deadbolt home. My hands were shaking so hard I could barely pull the safety chain. The text was still there, scrolling across the grain of my wooden door. [He’s not just a killer; he’s a total freak. This case stayed cold for decades because he murdered her and literally bricked her into the walls of his new house. They didn’t find her remains until he died and the property was sold.] [The killer is a perfectionist. He’s been staking her out for days. He finally got his window tonight; he’s not giving up.] [So stupid. She hasn’t even called the cops. She deserves what’s coming.] [Ugh… can we not with the victim-blaming?] The “comments” snapped me out of my trance. I lunged for my phone and dialed 911. Heart hammering against my ribs, I pressed my ear to the door. Sure enough, I heard it—the surreal, sickening shuffle of leather dress shoes mixed with the sharp clack of heels, pacing right outside my entryway. I remembered my doorbell camera. With trembling fingers, I pulled up the feed on my phone. The image made my blood turn to ice. A man was there, fully masked, crouched on all fours like a predatory insect. He had dress shoes on his feet and a pair of red pumps over his hands. He was staring—unmoving, unblinking—directly at my door. I clamped a hand over my mouth to stifle a sob. He lingered for a few more seconds, then began to crawl up the stairs, disappearing from the camera’s view. I waited, my lungs burning from holding my breath. Just as I started to exhale, he reappeared. But this time, he was different. He had stripped off his shoes. In just his socks, he moved with the silence of a shadow, gliding back to my door. He was standing right there. Inches away. Separated only by a slab of wood. My knees gave out. I collapsed into a heap, my strength vanishing. The camera feed wasn’t real-time—it lagged by a few seconds. Driven by a primal need to know where he was right now, I forced myself up and peered through the peephole. I gasped, reeling back. A single, bloodshot eye was staring back at me through the glass, wide and brimming with pure, concentrated malice. 2 The police were still minutes away. In this silence, minutes were an eternity. I had to survive. The sheer terror transformed into a jagged spike of adrenaline. I grabbed everything—the heavy bookshelf, the kitchen table, the entryway bench—and dragged them against the door, barricading myself in. I kept the monitor open, tracking him. He paced for a while, then finally, he seemed to retreat into the shadows of the hallway. I’m safe, I thought. I slid to the floor, my back against the barricade, gasping for air. My shirt was plastered to my skin with cold sweat. The text scrolled again. [Wait, why is this different? Wasn’t she supposed to be garroted from behind before she even reached the door?] [The lead seems to know. She blocked the door. She’s changing the script.] [Blocking the door won’t matter. She’s dead anyway.] [Can you guys at least hope for a win for once?] I stared at the words. The “plot” could be changed. But according to these… viewers… I was still marked for death. But how? The windows were locked. The door was a fortress. The killer was gone. Why did they sound so certain? He’s been staking you out for days, the text had said. What did I ever do to this man? I’d been living at the office for a week finishing the Q3 reports. Tonight was the first time I’d even come home to sleep. [Oh god, he’s inside. I can’t watch!] [I’m crying. She worked so hard to block that door, and he’s still going to get her.] [It’s like filling out a whole Scantron and still failing the exam…] [Seriously, what did she do to him? To make him work this hard to kill her?] [Nobody knows. When they found her body, the killer was already dead. The secret died with him. It’s starting! It’s starting! Eyes closed!] Inside? How could he be inside? Then, the realization hit me like a physical blow. The bedroom balcony. The neighboring apartment shared a narrow ledge. It was a jump, a dangerous one, but for someone this obsessed, it was a breeze. My scalp crawled. I scrambled to push the furniture away, to get out, to run into the hallway—the very place I had just fled. But I had done too good a job. I was trapped by my own barricade. Click. The bedroom door creaked open. I didn’t escape. I felt the thin, wire-like cord bite into the skin of my throat. As the world turned black and my lungs screamed for oxygen, I heard him. He was humming a soft, upbeat little tune, savoring the rhythm of my final struggle. 3 I snapped awake. I was standing in the mouth of a narrow alleyway. At the far end sat the rusted iron gates of my apartment complex. I was alive. I clutched my throat, gasping, the phantom sensation of the wire still burning into my flesh. I realized, with a jarring clarity, that I had been reset. Reborn. This alley was a trap. It was the only way into the complex, flanked by high brick walls. If he wanted me, this was where he’d wait. Was he behind me? Was he already tucked into a corner of the courtyard? I reached for my phone to call 911, but my thumb hovered over the screen. If he was right behind me, a phone call would trigger a “nothing to lose” attack. As I hesitated, the text flickered back into existence. [Is this the cold case? The one where she was found in the wall decades later?] [The killer is literally right behind her right now. This is terrifying.] My blood ran cold. I forced myself not to look back. In the previous timeline, he waited until I was inside. He wanted the privacy of the building to handle the “disposal.” If he killed me here, in the alley, the risk of a witness was too high. The building was old. No cameras in the halls. A dying security system. It was a killer’s playground. I was “safe” for the next sixty seconds, but as soon as I crossed that threshold, the clock started again. I began to walk, my legs feeling like leaden weights. [I wish I could jump into the screen and tell her to run!] [Running doesn’t help. Single woman living alone—the deck is stacked against her. If she dodges this guy, there’s always the next one.] [Look at Mr. Cynical over here. Shut up and let us watch!] I couldn’t run. I had to be smarter. I needed a witness. A protector. If the killer saw I wasn’t alone, he’d pull back. I couldn’t call the police yet—what would I say? “A man is walking behind me”? They’d arrive, he’d vanish, and I’d be labeled a hysteric while he waited for tomorrow night. No. I needed a deterrent. It was the middle of the night. My friends all lived uptown. Then I remembered Tyler. Tyler was the son of Mrs. Henderson, the lady who lived directly below me. He was a professional MMA coach—built like a tank and twice as tough. He’d been staying with his mom for the last week, helping her pack. A few days ago, he’d stopped me in the hall to give me a ceramic vase they didn’t want to move. He’d been friendly, almost hovering, and we’d exchanged numbers. In the last timeline, I remembered hearing a door click shut downstairs right before I died. He was awake. I shot him a text, my fingers flying. Tyler, please. Someone is following me in the alley. I’m scared. Are you awake? The reply was instant. Stay calm. I’m coming down to the gate now. I’d like to see some prick try to touch you while I’m there. The flickering streetlights overhead hummed, casting long, distorted shadows. I tucked my chin into my jacket and quickened my pace. 4 When I reached the gate, Tyler was there. He looked imposing in a heavy hoodie, leaning against the brickwork. The relief was so sharp it was almost painful. I hurried to him, and as I stepped into his shadow, the floating text vanished. The “plot” had shifted. I had survived the encounter. Tyler’s eyes were locked on the darkness behind me. He didn’t even look at me; he just started walking past me, his jaw set in a hard line of fury. “Tyler, wait!” I grabbed his arm. “Are you crazy?” “Don’t stop me,” he growled. “I’m going to teach this creep a lesson he won’t forget. He’ll be calling me ‘sir’ by the time I’m done with him.” I pulled harder, dragging him toward the stairs. “No. Just get me inside. Please.” I hadn’t told him it was a serial killer. I’d just said “stalker.” If Tyler went out there and got knifed, or if he just beat the guy up, it would only escalate things. Besides, I had no proof. I changed the subject to distract him. “Is your mom back yet?” Tyler’s face soured. Mentioning Martha Henderson always hit a nerve. “Who knows? She’s probably staying at a motel to ‘make a point’ to me and my dad. It’s pathetic. She thinks if she disappears for a month, we’ll suddenly start groveling.” He rolled his eyes. “It won’t work. Neither of us cares. She’ll realize she’s wrong and crawl back in a few days.” I frowned. “Tyler, she’s been gone for a month. Have you even tried to call the hospitals? Or the police?” He waved a dismissive hand. “She’s a grown woman. What’s going to happen to her? Besides, she was never exactly ‘Mother of the Year.’ My dad raised me. If it wasn’t for him, I’d probably be in jail or dead.” In my memory, Martha was anything but distant. She was fiery, sure, but she’d always been incredibly attentive to Tyler. She didn’t seem like the “absentee” type. 5 “Maybe you’re misjudging her?” I suggested softly. Tyler let out a harsh, jagged laugh. “My mother is a tiger, Mia. And not the good kind. She has a temper that could level a building. My dad told me she almost smothered me in my crib when I was a baby. If he hadn’t walked in and stopped her, I wouldn’t be here.” A voice cut through the air from the landing above, stopping Tyler mid-sentence. “Tyler!” We both looked up. A man was standing there, bathed in the dim yellow glow of the hallway light. Tyler’s face brightened. “Speak of the devil. Ask him yourself if you don’t believe me.” My heart skipped a beat. I’d been so caught up in the conversation I hadn’t realized someone had been following us up the stairs. But when I saw it was David, Tyler’s father, I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. I’d lived in this building for two years, but Martha had always lived here alone. This was the first time I’d actually met David in person. He was exactly as the neighbors described: distinguished, soft-spoken, and radiating a calm, gentle energy. David stepped down toward us. His voice was firm but lacked any real edge of anger. He looked at Tyler with a sort of weary, indulgent smile. “How many times have I told you not to talk about your mother like that?” He turned to me, his expression softening into one of genuine concern. “She might have had her reasons back then, Tyler. Even if she made a mistake in a moment of weakness, you owe her your understanding.” I felt a small prickle of unease. On the surface, he was defending her. But why did it feel like he was actually reinforcing the idea that she was unstable? Before I could analyze the feeling, we arrived at my door. As I reached for my keys, the translucent text flickered back to life. [Wait… why is the victim walking with the killer?] [This is sick. He’s giving her a false sense of security before the kill. Look at him smile. He loves this.] [Don’t go in there! Don’t stay near them! You’re walking into your own grave!] [No wonder she died so horribly. She literally invited the murderer into her home.] 6 A wave of nausea rolled over me. The safety I’d felt seconds ago vanished, replaced by a cold, paralyzing dread. My neck felt like a rusted gear as I slowly turned to look at the two men standing behind me. The killer was one of them. Last time, the killer had gotten in through the balcony. He must have come from Martha’s apartment next door. That’s why it was so fast. I swallowed hard, forcing a brittle, plastic smile onto my face. I couldn’t let them see I knew. I’d tried so hard to escape, and I’d walked straight into the wolf’s den. Tyler, noticing my pallor, poured me a glass of water from the pitcher on my counter. “Hey, take it easy. That creep won’t bother you anymore.” David looked curious. “What creep?” I opened my mouth to stop Tyler, but it was too late. “Some pervert was following Mia. But I scared him off.” “Well, that’s a relief,” David said with a light chuckle. He looked at me, his head tilting slightly. “Did you see his face? If you did, we should really call the police.” I shook my head, my eyes darting between them, searching for a crack, a slip, a tell. Nothing. They were perfect. My mind was a chaotic mess. Why me? What could I have possibly done to earn this level of calculated cruelty? Tyler reached out toward me. “You’re shaking. You’re really spooked, aren’t you?” My skin winced before he even touched me. I jerked away, my heart hammering. I caught myself and laughed nervously. “Sorry. Just… a lot of caffeine and a long night. I’m exhausted.” Tyler pulled his hand back, scratching his head. “Right. Well, get some sleep. Moving day tomorrow is going to be a workout.” “You’re moving tomorrow?” David asked. The question felt sharp, somehow. I didn’t have time to answer before the text scrolled again. [The video is almost over. She’s going to die in a few minutes.] [Her guard is way too low. Letting strangers into her place this late? Basic survival fail.] The comments were moving too fast to read, and none of them were giving me the one thing I needed: which one? I forced myself to breathe. I had to analyze. What was the motive?

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “434814”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

The rescue boat rocked violently against the churning rapids. The rain was a cold, relentless sheet, blurring the world into shades of slate and charcoal. Beside me, the rescue worker was screaming, his voice nearly lost to the roar of the flood. “We can only take one more! You have to decide now!” I hesitated, my hand frozen on the edge of the boat. And then, it happened. Glowing lines of text began to drift across my vision like a digital fever dream. Look at this tragic side-character, one line read. She actually thinks they’re naked because of hypothermia. She has no idea her ‘artist’ husband was busy ravishing his little protege by the riverbank when the levee broke. I can’t wait for the next part, another comment scrolled by. After she saves him, he’s going to realize his true feelings, shove her overboard to make room, and give the girl mouth-to-mouth. Total swoon moment. Give us the drama! The hesitation vanished. My heart, which had been hammering with panic, suddenly went cold and still. I remembered a week ago, finding my husband, Killian, in the corner of his studio. He had his young apprentice, Luna, pinned against the wall. He’d whispered that she was his soul, his muse—that he’d give his very life for her. Luna had looked up with that wide-eyed, innocent gaze and asked, “How would you give it, Killian?” Well, Killian. Here was your chance to find out. I grabbed the single rescue rope and threw it toward Luna. The situation was simple, really: Killian, the prestigious professor, had taken his favorite student on a “plein air” painting trip into the mountains. A flash flood hit. Now, they were both drifting in the freezing water, stripped bare by the current—or perhaps by something else—clinging to a log and dying of exposure. 1 “Jade, please! Think about this!” Parker, one of Killian’s other students who was on the boat with me, looked at me with a horrified, stiff expression. “Luna’s already unconscious from the cold. If we pull the Professor up first, he actually has a chance of surviving!” The floating text in my eyes hissed in agreement: [Parker is such a loyal dog. He knows that if the Professor gets on the boat, he’ll definitely kick the wife off to save Luna!] [Our sweet Luna is going to be so kind later. She’ll inherit Jade’s entire estate after she drowns, and she’ll be so ‘devastated’ she won’t even let Killian touch her on Jade’s death anniversary. What an angel.] I stared at the text, a bitter taste in my mouth. Since when did being a mistress and a gold-digger count as being “kind”? “I know… I want to save him more than anything. He’s my husband,” I whispered, my voice trembling perfectly. I stared out at the dark water, looking like a woman whose heart was shattering in real-time. I let my body sway, a fragile silhouette against the storm. “But Killian always said… he said Luna’s father saved his life years ago. He told me he owed her a debt that could never be repaid.” I twisted my damp handkerchief, dabbing at my eyes. “He told me that for the sake of gratitude, he would lay down his life for her. He’s a man of honor, Parker. I have to respect his wishes. I have to be a good example for our son!” Without another word, I looped the rope into a lasso and flung it toward the floating, unconscious Luna. We hauled her in. “Jade!” Killian’s voice was a desperate, guttural howl from the water. He reached for us, but the current was too strong. A sudden surge of debris slammed him against a jagged boulder. His head snapped back, and he went limp, disappearing under the frothing brown water. I looked down into the depths, a tiny, dark smile touching my lips. Don’t die too easily, Killian, I prayed. The fun is just beginning. Just as he vanished, Parker managed to snag Killian’s shirt with a makeshift hook made from his own belt. He started trying to pull him toward the side. Knowing these people, I knew that if Killian got a finger on this boat, I was going over the side. I quickly grabbed my phone and dialed my mother-in-law, Beatrice. The second she picked up, I let out a jagged, hysterical sob. “Mom! Something terrible has happened!” “What is it?” Beatrice’s voice was already sharp with irritation. “Luna and Killian… they were caught in the flood! They’re saying Luna might not make it! It’s horrific!” “What?” Beatrice’s blood pressure clearly spiked through the phone. “Jade, you useless woman! You can’t keep an eye on your man, and you can’t even look after a young girl? Listen to me—if you don’t save Luna, I’ll make sure Killian divorces you tomorrow. You’ll be out on the street with nothing! I’m coming down there now!” “Mom, I’m trying! I’ll do exactly what you say! I’ll save her!” I hung up, a cold satisfaction settling in my chest. I had successfully misled her. She now thought Luna was the only one in the water. “But the boat is full,” I shouted to the air, making sure Parker heard. “We have to wait for the next sweep! I hope she can hold on!” The real show was about to start. Beatrice arrived twenty minutes later on a larger, overcrowded rescue vessel. She saw me straining against the rope Parker was holding—the rope that was currently tethered to a submerged, unconscious body. Because Killian was underwater, you couldn’t tell who it was. The weight was dragging our small boat down, making it tilt dangerously. Beatrice screamed from the other vessel, “Jade! You murderous bitch! I knew you’d try to hurt her!” “Mom, wait!” I stammered, acting paralyzed by “nerves.” “You’re pretending to be a hero, trying to save some ‘stranger’ while Luna is dying?” Beatrice roared, ignoring the other passengers. “Let go of that rope! Luna’s life is the only thing that matters! Let the other person drown!” Parker tried to intervene. “Ma’am, the person under the water is—” He wanted to say it was his professor. It was her son. But Beatrice didn’t give him the chance. She lunged across the gap between the boats and slapped him hard across the face. “I know all about you, Parker! Jade, you’ve always been a slut. I knew from the day you married into this family you’d try to ruin us. You’re probably trying to save your secret lover right now!” She turned to the men on her boat. “A thousand dollars to whoever ties this brat up and cuts that rope! Save my grandson!” I blinked. Grandson? So, Beatrice knew. She knew Luna was carrying Killian’s child. That’s why she was so desperate. 2 In the face of death, human nature is a fragile thing. Parker was tackled and gagged within seconds. I “struggled” to hold onto the rope, crying out, “Mom, please don’t! Killian is—” But Beatrice wasn’t listening. “Shut up! I don’t care if it’s your own father at the end of that rope. He’s in the way of my grandson’s future!” She grabbed a pair of emergency shears from the rescue kit. With a sharp snip, the tension vanished. The rope whipped back, empty. Beatrice looked triumphant. “Get us to the shore! To the hospital! We have to make sure the baby is safe!” Well, Killian, I thought as I watched the spot where he had been submerged drift away. Don’t blame me. It was your own mother who cut the cord. 3 Beatrice was so worried about Luna’s “precious cargo” that she moved her to the faster boat, leaving me behind in the rain. The boat drifted for a while in the silence of the receding storm. “Jade…?” A weak, watery voice drifted from the darkness near the bank. I froze. It was Killian. He sounded like he was coughing up his own lungs, but he was alive. “I knew I was too stubborn to die… Jade, get help! Get me out!” He was clinging to a low-hanging willow branch, his body a map of bruises and jagged cuts from the rocks. He was pale, shivering violently—shaking with the final stages of hypothermia. “Oh, Killian!” I cried out, my voice dripping with performative grief. “The boat is full! We can’t take any more! Help is coming, I promise! You have to be strong!” “Jade… pull me in…” “I can’t! But remember what you said? Luna’s life is more important than anything. I made sure Mom took her to the hospital first! I knew that’s what you’d want!” I looked around the boat and found some heavy gear—anchor weights and broken metal parts. “Here, Killian! Let me throw you something to help you stay afloat!” I tossed the heavy metal weights directly toward him. They splashed heavily, missing him by inches but creating waves that battered his weakened grip. Without the extra weight, our boat moved faster, catching the current toward the landing. Killian’s face, twisted in a mask of realization and fury, vanished behind a wall of rain as he let out a pathetic, pig-like squeal before being swept back into the dark. He looked so moved, he practically fainted. I really am the most understanding wife a man could ask for. 4 The search for Killian made the local news every night for two weeks. Beatrice didn’t care. She didn’t even realize he was missing at first; she was too busy hovering over Luna in the private wing of the hospital. The nurses were less than impressed. “She was carrying twins,” one whispered to me in the hall. “But if they hadn’t been so… active… during the storm, her uterine wall wouldn’t have been so compromised. They were caught in the act when the water hit. The bacteria from the floodwater caused a massive infection. It’s a miracle she’s alive, but the babies…” Luna was in a coma, bleeding out from complications. Then, after fifteen days, they found him. Killian had survived by eating whatever washed up in the debris—contaminated, rotting scraps. His wounds had turned gangrenous, untreated and festering in the humidity. By the time he reached the ICU, he was swollen beyond recognition. Even the people in the “bullet chats” didn’t recognize him. The “God-like Artist” now looked like a piece of waterlogged meat. Looking at him, I remembered the early days. We were childhood sweethearts. We were happy, once. But then his art took off, and I became the “boring corporate wife” who didn’t understand his soul. He found his “soul” in the wide eyes of his students. Last month, when Luna’s ex-boyfriend leaked explicit photos of her online, Killian had stepped up. He’d used his “artistic expertise” to testify that the woman in the photos wasn’t Luna. He claimed it was me. His wife. When I confronted him, he had pinned me by the throat against our bedroom door. “Jade, I gave you the dignity of being a professor’s wife. Why must you hurt her? The uploader confessed you hired him out of jealousy. I’m just letting you take the fall to balance the scales. I owe her my life. If she wanted my head on a platter, I’d give it to her.” I had slapped him then, with every ounce of strength I had. When I woke the next morning, he was gone, leaving a note saying he was going to a “remote gallery opening.” In reality, they were hopping between cheap motels and riverside campsites, playing out their tawdry fantasy under the guise of “art.” The doctor in the ICU shook his head. He was trying to find a polite way to say Killian was a wreck. His bones were shattered, protruding through the skin in places, and the infection had reached his marrow. “We can stabilize him,” the doctor said, voice low. “But he’s been out there too long. He’ll never walk again. He’ll be lucky if he retains any mobility in his arms.” I wiped a stray tear, pulled two hundred-dollar bills from my purse, and tucked them into the doctor’s pocket. “Please, just keep him alive. That’s all that matters.” “Jade…?” Killian croaked from the bed. He sounded like a ghost. I rushed to his side, clutching his bandaged hand. I made sure to squeeze just hard enough to find the broken phalanges beneath the gauze. Killian’s pupils dilated. A muffled scream tore through his throat. He shook with agony, but he was too weak to pull away. “It’s my fault,” I whispered, leaning close to his ear, my voice a silk-wrapped blade. “Don’t worry, darling. You’re in such bad shape… I’ll take care of everything. The house, the studio, the accounts. I’ll handle it all.” Fear flashed in his clouded eyes. He understood. Everything he had built—his reputation, his wealth—was slipping into my hands. “Don’t thank me. I did what you asked. I saved Luna first. Sadly, she lost the babies, and you’ll never walk again, but I know you’d make the same choice a thousand times over. After all, we’re one soul, aren’t we? I know you better than anyone.” His throat hitched. “Jade… you… monster…” He tried to curse me, to ask if I’d done it on purpose. Instead, he just choked on a mouthful of black bile. The floating text was buzzing: [The wife better watch out. Marcus—I mean Killian—is the protagonist. He’ll have a miraculous recovery once the baby is born, and then it’s over for her!] [Wait, today is Luna’s due date! Here comes the miracle!] Right on cue, the sound of a thin, wailing cry echoed from down the hall. “My Luna is a fighter!” Beatrice’s voice boomed in the corridor. She strutted past the door, throwing me a look of pure venom. “She’s given us a beautiful grandson, unlike some barren women I know—” She took the bundle from the nurse and suddenly, the bragging stopped. A heavy thud followed as Beatrice collapsed onto the linoleum. “What… what is this monster? This can’t be my grandson! You’ve swapped him!”

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I was about five seconds away from dumping my sad, discounted Caesar salad over my co-worker’s head. Madison had been running her mouth for ten minutes, and frankly, I’d had enough. She was currently trashing the intern she’d just started dating, calling him a “total mama’s boy,” and—get this—trying to pawn him off on me. “I’m serious, Cass,” she said, picking at her manicure. “He has to ask his mother for everything. He literally FaceTimed her to ask what he should order for dinner on our first date. The internet says guys like that are a death trap. If you marry into a family like that, you’re just signing up to be a free live-in maid for some overbearing old lady.” Then came the kicker. She smirked at me, her eyes glinting with a mean sort of pity. “Actually, since you grew up in that group home, you never really had the whole ‘motherly love’ experience, right? You’d probably love catering to a demanding old woman. It’d be like a hobby for you.” I felt the blood rush to my face. My grip tightened on the plastic container. But just as I was about to let the ranch dressing fly, a line of glowing text flickered across my vision. [CASS, GIRL, DON’T DO IT! DON’T BLOW THIS! That ‘mama’s boy’ is the only son of the richest woman in the city. She’s insanely generous, fiercely protective, and worth billions!] Before I could blink, another one scrolled past: [The ‘old lady’ is only ‘demanding’ because she insists on buying her daughter-in-law penthouses and custom Porsches. She treats her son’s partners like her own flesh and blood!] And a third: [Relax, this mean girl is just a stepping stone. Once the billionaire mom finds out her son switched girls, she’s going to go all-in on Cass. We love a ‘Rich Mother-in-Law’ trope!] I froze. The salad stayed in the bowl. Slowly, I lowered it and pushed it toward Madison with a tight, serene smile. “You know what, Madison? You’re right. I’ve always wanted to be part of a family. Send me his contact info.” It wasn’t about the money. Not really. It was just that, more than anything in the world, I really, really wanted a mom. 01 To break the ice after he accepted my request, I scrolled through Adrian’s social media. His latest post was from three minutes ago. The location tag was a 24-hour emergency vet. It was a photo of a silver British Shorthair in an oxygen tank, tangled in tubes and wires. “Emergency! Snowy has had a sudden reaction and needs an immediate blood transfusion. Type A. The blood bank is empty. If anyone has a healthy cat nearby, please help. I’ll do anything.” A line of text drifted past my eyes: [The Male Lead refuses to use blood from ‘blood farms.’ He’s such a good guy. How could the other girl give him up?!] Blood farms. The thought made my stomach turn. I looked down at my big, goofy orange tabby, Marmalade, who was currently face-deep in a tin of premium tuna. I snapped a photo and sent it to Adrian. “My cat is twelve pounds and healthy as a horse. I’m ten minutes away. We’re coming.” When I arrived at the clinic, Adrian was slumped on a plastic bench, head in his hands. He looked like he was vibrating with tension. At the sound of my footsteps, he looked up. His eyes were bloodshot, his face pale. His high-end suit was rumpled, his tie loosened as if he’d been clawing at his throat. “You’re the one?” he asked, his voice a gravelly wreck. I handed him the carrier. “Save the cat first.” The next thirty minutes were a blur of needles, tests, and the rhythmic hum of the oxygen machine. I sat a few feet away from him. He kept glancing at the swinging doors of the surgery suite, his knuckles white as he gripped his knees. A nurse finally stepped out. “The cross-match is a success. Type A. We’re starting the transfusion now.” Adrian stood up so fast his knees slammed into the bench with a sickening thud. He didn’t even flinch. He strode over to me, fumbling with his phone. “Thank you. Seriously, thank you. Let me venmo you ten thousand for the trouble—more if you need it. For the ‘nutritional recovery’ of your cat.” His hands were shaking so hard he kept mistyping. I reached out and gently pushed his phone down. “No.” “This is a life-saving favor,” he insisted. “I have to pay you.” I pulled Marmalade into my lap, stroking his thick orange fur. “I’m doing this for good karma for my cat. If I take your money, it taints the kindness. Marmalade is happy to help a friend.” Adrian went still, staring at me as if I were a puzzle he couldn’t solve. The “Surgery in Progress” light flickered off. The vet walked out, pulling off his mask. “He’s out of the woods. We’ll keep him overnight for observation, but he’s going to be fine.” Adrian let out a breath that sounded like a sob. He leaned against the wall, the tension finally draining out of his shoulders. “I owe you everything,” he said, his gaze softening as it landed on me. “Wait… why did you add me on WeChat earlier today?” My phone screen lit up. It was Madison. A string of toxic messages: “Well? Did he ask his mommy where to take you for coffee yet?” “Only a weirdo like you could handle a freak like that.” I didn’t have a privacy screen. Adrian’s eyes tracked the words. I didn’t try to hide it. I’ve never seen the point in lying when the truth is right there. “Madison recommended you to me,” I said. “She told me you were a ‘mama’s boy.’ Said you couldn’t breathe without her permission and that whoever married you would just be a glorified servant.” Adrian’s face turned to stone. The air in the hallway turned cold. The glowing text flared up: [CANNON FODDER IS SO STUPID! You can’t just say that to his face! You’ve ruined it!] [RIP Cass. Her IQ is literally zero. Who tells a guy he’s a mama’s boy on the first meeting?!] My heart skipped a beat as I watched his expression harden. “Just take it as a joke,” I added quickly, trying to smooth the edges. Adrian looked down, silent. The silence stretched, heavy and suffocating. Then, he let out a short, self-deprecating laugh. He pulled out his phone, found Madison’s contact, and hit Block and Delete without a second thought. “She’s half-right,” he said, looking me straight in the eye. “I do share everything with my mother. I value her opinion more than anyone’s. But my mother is not the kind of woman who wants a servant. She wants a daughter.” He took a step closer, invading my personal space in a way that felt strangely grounding. “You’re honest. And you’re kind,” he said, his voice sincere. “Can I officially ask you out? For real this time?” I stood there, my brain stalling. “I’m not doing this to spite her,” he added. “I’m doing this because I think you’re incredible.” The text in the air went haywire: [Wait, this isn’t the script! He’s supposed to walk away in a huff!] [Why is he into her?! This wasn’t in the spoilers!] I watched the chaos of the comments and then looked at Adrian. Rich, kind, loves his cat, and has a billionaire mother who supposedly wants to spoil her son’s girlfriend? I bit back a smile and looked into his hopeful eyes. “I’d like that,” I said. 02 Adrian’s way of courting me was clumsy but relentless. Every morning at 7:00 AM, a hot oat milk latte and a fresh almond croissant appeared at the office front desk for me. At noon, a thermal bag arrived at my cubicle containing a three-course meal—perfectly balanced, with fruit pre-sliced. At 6:00 PM, his car was idling at the curb, rain or shine. Madison watched this for a week, her face turning a sour shade of green. “Is he for real? All this for a mama’s boy?” I ignored her and took a sip of the slow-simmered beef stew Adrian had sent. It was still the perfect temperature. Adrian’s “mama’s boy” traits were exactly as advertised. He’d FaceTime me to ask what I wanted for lunch. He’d FaceTime me to decide which movie we should see. He even held up his phone in a bakery once so his mom could help him choose which flavor of cake I’d like best. One afternoon, while we were at a high-end mall, he pulled out his phone again. I leaned into the frame and waved. “Hi, Mrs. Norton.” The woman on the screen froze, then her face broke into a massive, radiant smile. “Oh! Is this Cassidy? Adrian hasn’t stopped talking about you! You’re even prettier than he said!” She looked to be in her early fifties, elegant but with warm crinkles around her eyes. Her smile wasn’t the polite, icy grin of a socialite—it was genuine. It reached her eyes. “Sweet girl, have you eaten? It’s getting chilly out, make sure you’re wearing enough layers, okay?” Sweet girl. My hand tightened on the phone. No one had ever called me that. Not with that tone. After the call ended, Adrian noticed my eyes were rimmed with red. “What’s wrong?” he panicked, hovering over me. “Did she say something? She can be a bit much, I know, I’ll talk to her—” “No,” I whispered, blinking hard. “It’s just… I grew up in the system. I don’t have parents. I don’t even know what they looked like.” The text in the air exploded. [An orphan and a billionaire? The mom is going to throw a check at her face and tell her to get lost.] [Old money families hate ‘nobodies.’ Just wait for the rejection.] [There’s no way a CEO mother accepts a girl with no background.] Adrian didn’t say a word. We were standing in the middle of a crowded atrium, surrounded by the noise of shoppers and mall music. He reached out and gently brushed a stray tear from my cheek. “The fact that you grew up to be who you are, all on your own… that makes you more impressive than anyone I know.” That weekend, he told me he was taking me home for dinner. As the car turned into a long, tree-lined driveway in a gated community, I knew I was in over my head. The lawn was manicured to perfection, leading up to a sprawling limestone estate with a fountain out front. “This is… your house?” “Yeah.” I looked down at the $20 fruit basket in my lap. I’d bought it at the local grocery store. It felt pathetic. My palms started to sweat. When the car stopped, I couldn’t move. Adrian came around to open my door, but I gripped the basket like a life raft. “Adrian, this gift is… it’s embarrassing. I should have gotten something else.” “My mom doesn’t care about that stuff.” Before he could finish, the massive front doors swung open. A woman in a stunning silk wrap dress and heels came flying out. I recognized the smile from the FaceTime call. She bypassed her own son entirely and pulled me into a suffocatingly warm hug. “My darling! You’re finally here!” “Mom, don’t scare her—” Adrian started. Violet Norton didn’t even look at him. “Hush, you.” She pulled back, looking me up and down with a frown. “You’re too thin. Are you eating enough?” Then, she reached into her pocket, pulled out a set of keys, and pressed them into my hand. “There’s a penthouse downtown. Three thousand square feet, fully furnished, top-of-the-line everything. It’s yours. Just a little ‘welcome to the family’ gift. Tell me if you need anything else.” I turned into a statue. “Mrs. Norton, I… I can’t. This is too much—” “Call me Mom,” she said, her expression turning stern. “’Mrs. Norton’ is for strangers. If you don’t take them, it means you don’t think I’m doing a good job as a mother.” The glowing text went silent. […] [I have nothing to say.] [Wait, so the mother-in-law is actually a saint? This isn’t a trap?] Standing at the door of a mansion, holding a cheap fruit basket and the keys to a multi-million dollar condo, my nose crinkled and the tears started falling. I looked a mess. Violet pulled me back into her arms, patting my back as if I were a wounded bird. “Oh, honey, don’t cry. You’re home now.” Twenty-three years. It took twenty-three years for someone to say that to me. I gripped the keys and managed a shaky, broken whisper. “Thanks… Mom.” I was never letting this family go. 03 Monday morning, Adrian’s car was parked in front of my office like clockwork. He hopped out to open my door and swapped my regular coffee for a thermos of herbal tea his mother had insisted on brewing for me. Madison came charging out of the building, intercepting us. “Adrian! Can we talk? I was just being immature before—” Adrian didn’t even give her a glance. He ushered me toward the entrance, leaving Madison standing on the sidewalk, her face flushing a deep, humiliated red. Suddenly, a line of gold text flashed: [DON’T GET TOO COZY! The ‘Childhood Friend’ returns today! She’s fragile, she’s sickly, and she’s here to wreck the relationship!] I stumbled slightly. A childhood friend? But the reality was nothing like the comments predicted. Her name was Gia. She’d been abroad for years receiving treatment for a chronic condition. She was soft-spoken and sweet. When we met, she grabbed my arm excitedly. “Adrian said you were special. I’ve been dying to meet the girl who finally tamed him!” Adrian stood by, looking completely relaxed. “Gia’s like a sister to me. She’s had a rough time with her health, so I hope you guys can be friends.” There was no drama. No “it should have been me” glares. Gia even started stopping by my office for lunch. We talked about skincare and gossip; she brought me snacks from Europe, and I showed her the best local hole-in-the-wall spots. The comments were quiet for a few days. But Madison wasn’t. I didn’t realize she’d seen me enter my passcode. I didn’t realize how long she’d been watching. That afternoon, I had a meeting on the 17th floor and left my phone at my desk. When I came back forty minutes later, my screen was lit up. It was open to my chat with Gia. The last message sent from my account read: “Gia, I found this amazing hidden cafe on the B3 level of the building. Come meet me!” Gia had replied with a heart emoji: “On my way!” B3. The entire building knew the B3 basement had been abandoned for two years. The lights were broken, and there was zero cell service. My heart plummeted. I reached for my phone to call her, to tell her it wasn’t me— A massive red block of text slammed into my vision: [YES! THE SCHEME IS SET! The Mean Girl dropped the fire shutters! The Childhood Friend has severe claustrophobia and asthma! She’s a goner, and Cass is the prime suspect!] The blood drained from my face. I didn’t even grab my bag. I sprinted for the stairs, skipping steps, my heart hammering against my ribs. The elevator was too slow. I flew down the concrete stairwell from the 12th floor. My legs felt like jelly, and I slammed my knee into a railing, but I didn’t stop. Gia has asthma. Closed space. No signal. Alone. She could die. When I hit B3, the lights were out. The only glow came from a flickering green emergency sign. The heavy iron fire shutters had been triggered, sealing the hallway shut. From behind the metal door, I heard it. A faint, wet wheeze. “Gia!” I screamed, pounding on the metal. “Gia, can you hear me?!” No answer. Only the sound of someone struggling for air. I lunged for the nearby fire station and smashed the glass with my bare hand. Shards sliced into my palm, blood slicking my wrist, but I didn’t feel it. I grabbed the heavy fire extinguisher and swung it like a sledgehammer at the lock of the shutter. Every strike sent a jar of pain up my arm. My grip was slipping because of the blood, so I wiped my hand on my shirt and swung again. The seventh hit, the lock groaned. The eleventh hit, it snapped. I threw the extinguisher aside and shoved the shutters up with everything I had. Gia was collapsed on the concrete, her lips tinged blue, her chest barely moving. I dropped to my knees, ignored the searing pain in my palms, and started CPR while fumbling for my phone to call 911. “B3 basement… asthma attack… she’s not breathing… hurry!” Compressions. Breaths. Compressions. I don’t know how long I did it. My arms went numb. Finally, Gia let out a ragged, whistling gasp. She was breathing. The paramedics arrived minutes later. And so did Adrian. He looked at Gia on the stretcher, his face a mask of horror. “What happened?!” I opened my mouth to explain, but a sharp voice cut through the air. “It was her!” Madison pushed through the crowd, pointing a trembling finger at me. “I saw her! I saw the messages on her phone luring Gia down here! She was jealous of how close Gia and Adrian were. She tried to kill her!” She turned to Adrian, tears streaming down her face. “Adrian, I tried to tell you. Someone from her background… she’s not as innocent as she looks!” The whispers started immediately. “She tried to kill someone for a paycheck?” “Typical orphan behavior. No morals.” Adrian took my phone. He scrolled through the messages, his hand shaking. “Did you send this?” he asked, his voice low and vibrating with hurt. “No,” I said, looking him in the eye. “Then how do you explain this?” Madison sobbed. “Look at her hands! They’re covered in blood! She probably locked the door herself and then played the hero when she realized she’d get caught!” Adrian closed his eyes. He handed the phone back to me without another word and climbed into the ambulance with Gia. As the doors slammed shut, he didn’t look back. I stood in the dim light of the basement, my hands dripping red. The comments flooded back: [The perfect frame-up! Cass is done for!] [She saved the girl but lost the guy. Talk about a backfire.] I looked down at my bleeding palms. The siren faded into the distance.

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The cold, mechanical voice echoed in my skull just as my fingers tightened around the jagged edge of broken glass. I was ready to end it all. [Tragic Narrative Arc Complete. Host preparing for extraction to the Prime Reality.] Five years. I had been trapped in this frozen hellscape—the so-endured Winter Sanctuary—for five long years. To ensure their survival, I was sold into the subterranean labor wards. I wore an iron collar around my neck. I spent my days on my knees doing the most degrading, back-breaking work imaginable. I lost two toes to the frostbite. If I displeased the overseers in the slightest, they would drag me by my hair into the freezing water tanks until my lungs burned. But now, my fiancé, Todd, casually unzipped his heavy thermal coat. “If you hadn’t messed with the climate control and given Evie pneumonia, we wouldn’t have had to leave you down here to learn your place,” he said, his voice smooth, reasonable. “You’ve finally learned your lesson, haven’t you, Caroline?” My eyes widened, hollow and unblinking. Then my brother, Declan—who had lost an arm saving me three years ago in this very simulation—walked over. Both of his arms were perfectly intact. “Evie has a kind heart,” Declan said, adjusting his pristine cuffs. “She’s already forgiven you. Just be obedient from now on.” In the corner, the figures of my parents, who had mutated into the infected undead just months ago, nonchalantly wiped the black sludge from their mouths. They looked entirely human again. “Letting you lose a leg to the cold was a necessary punishment,” my mother said softly. “You can’t go around scheming to hurt Evie anymore.” A high-pitched ringing filled my ears. All of this. All of this was because Evie caught a cold? Something inside me snapped. A wet cough racked my chest, and a spray of dark blood hit the icy floor. The world faded to a suffocating black. 1 When I woke, the first thing I saw was a face of flawless, porcelain skin. Evie sat at the edge of my bed, her lips curled in faint disgust. “You’ve been somewhat manageable these past few years,” she said, examining her manicured nails. “So I decided to let you come back. But if you even think about crossing me again, Mom, Dad, and Todd won’t let you off so easy.” I didn’t know when I had ever crossed her. But five years in the dark had bred a bone-deep reflex in me. I didn’t dare think. I just nodded, a jerky, submissive motion. My parents stood near the doorway, exchanging a look of profound satisfaction. “She’s finally been tamed,” my father noted. “Those five years of character building didn’t go to waste.” Character building. That was their word for the iron collar. For kneeling in the freezing slush to scrub boots. For being dragged by my scalp into the icy depths. Character building. I didn’t argue. I just lowered my chin until it touched my chest. “I’ll be good. I’ll obey.” Todd and Declan shared a fleeting smile. It was the look of artisans admiring a wild thing they had successfully broken. Todd walked toward the bed and reached out to pat my head. My body seized. A violent, uncontrollable tremor ripped through me. His hand hovered in the air, freezing for a fraction of a second before he pulled it back. “You don’t need to be afraid. No one is going to hit you anymore,” Todd said, his tone adopting a velvet softness. “The Sanctuary is in the past. You are my fiancée now. You are Caroline Smith.” I shook my head, my eyes wide with terror. “No,” I whispered. “I’m the stray.” Todd froze. The softness evaporated, replaced by a tight, offended furrow in his brow. “Are you still blaming me for this?” My legs gave out. I threw myself off the mattress, hitting the hardwood floor with a heavy thud, and pressed my forehead against the floorboards. “No, no! The stray wouldn’t dare. It’s my fault. I’m worthless.” The smug smiles on my parents’ faces cracked. Declan stepped forward, grabbing my arm to haul me up. “Alright, enough of this. You’re out now. You don’t need to use that word anymore.” He pulled me out of the bedroom and down the hall into the dining room, pressing me into a chair. “Eat something. You must be starving.” I lifted my eyes, just a fraction, to take in the table. It was groaning under the weight of roasted meats, fresh vegetables, and steaming bread. In the wards, we fought like wild dogs for moldy rations. If you were a second too slow, you gnawed on frozen roots. Sometimes, if you reached for a dropped crumb, the guards would stomp on your hand until the bones snapped. Reflexively, I yanked my hands back, burying them deep inside my sleeves. Todd picked up a piece of glazed meat with his fork and placed it on my plate. Like a gunshot, the gesture sent me sliding off the chair. I hit my knees on the rug. “The stray… Caroline doesn’t deserve meat. Please, leave it for Miss Evie.” A suffocating silence fell over the dining room. Declan let out an irritated sigh and walked over to pull me up. But the moment his bare skin brushed my hand, he went rigid. My hands looked like petrified wood. They were gnarled, covered in the purple-black webbing of healed frostbite, the knuckles thick and deformed. I saw the memory flash in his eyes. The year he caught the fever in the Sanctuary. I had knelt in front of the ward overseer, smashing my head against the concrete until my skull bled, just to trade for a single bowl of hot broth to keep him alive. Declan abruptly dropped my arm. He took a step back, running a hand through his hair, his voice suddenly sharp with defensive frustration. “I told you to eat, so eat. Drop the dramatic act.” Todd stepped in, his voice taking on that soothing, patronizing cadence again. “It’s all over, Cara. You aren’t that spoiled, arrogant girl anymore. We won’t send you back.” He picked up the piece of meat and held it to my lips. I opened my mouth. I took it in. I didn’t dare chew too loudly. I just swallowed it down. Todd nodded, pleased. My mother reached out, patting my shoulder, a small smile returning to her face. “Since Caroline has finally learned how to behave, I suppose we can start planning the wedding.” 2 Five years ago, I was the girl Todd loved. He used to hold my hand in the snow, pressing it into his coat pocket, promising he would keep me warm for the rest of our lives. But those memories felt like they belonged to a ghost. A girl from another lifetime. I gave a short, mechanical nod. Evie suddenly dropped her fork. It clattered against the fine china. Her smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Todd, her body is still so weak from her… time away. Isn’t a wedding a bit too stressful right now? Can she handle it?” “I’m fine,” I blurted out. The panic was a living thing in my chest. I was so terrified they would think I was being difficult. I was terrified they would throw me back into the dark. Evie stared at me, the fake sweetness draining from her expression. “Well. That’s good, then.” When the meal ended, I immediately stood up and began clearing the plates. My mother blinked, startled, but she didn’t stop me. Five years ago, I was the princess of the Smith household. I didn’t know how to run a dishwasher. Now, I stood at the sink, scrubbing every single plate until my knuckles throbbed. I washed them three times over before putting them in the sterilizer. In the wards, if a plate had a smudge, you took a beating. When I finally turned around, wiping my wet, deformed hands on my jeans, I saw Todd standing in the kitchen doorway. I jumped, my heart hammering against my ribs. Had I done something wrong? Was he angry? He frowned, his eyes scanning my hunched posture. “You… you don’t need to do chores here.” I dropped my gaze to his shoes, my voice small, fervent with devotion. “It’s my duty. I’ll take good care of you all. I promise.” I swallowed hard. “Just please… don’t send me back.” He stood there, perfectly still. Every muscle in my body pulled taut as a wire. I waited for his verdict. After what felt like an eternity, he spoke, his voice thick. “I’m never sending you back.” It was only when he turned and walked away that I remembered how to breathe. That night, Declan knocked on my bedroom door. He walked in holding a folded garment. “Your skin is sensitive. The fabric on this one is incredibly soft. You used to love this brand.” I reached out. The cashmere brushed my ruined fingertips, and for a second, my breath caught. It was so soft. Then, like it burned me, I shoved it back into his hands. “I don’t deserve something so nice. This is fine.” I pointed to the threadbare, patched jacket sitting in the corner of the room. Declan’s hand froze mid-air. “You didn’t used to be like this.” Used to be. I dug through my fragmented memories. The old Caroline. The girl who only wore silk, who demanded fresh linens every week, who drank from crystal. “I was ungrateful,” I recited, the words flat and rehearsed. “I was spoiled and I wasted so much. I know my place now. I’m content.” Declan’s jaw clenched. His knuckles turned white where he gripped the cashmere. He opened his mouth to argue, to say something, but the words died in his throat. He let out a ragged breath. “Just get some sleep.” He turned on his heel and pulled the door shut. But I didn’t go to sleep. I went to Todd’s room. He was sitting on the edge of his bed. When I walked in, he looked startled, but a flicker of genuine warmth—maybe even desire—lit up his eyes. “What are you doing here?” he asked softly. I quietly clicked the door shut behind me. “You are my master now. It’s my duty to serve you tonight.” Before he could process the words, I began unbuttoning my shirt. I climbed onto the mattress, lay flat on my back, spread my legs, and stared blankly at the ceiling. I felt nothing. Seconds ticked by. He didn’t move. A cold sweat broke out on my neck. I turned my head to look at him. Panic clawed at my throat. Did I do the ritual wrong? In the labor wards, when the guards were silent like this, it meant the punishment was going to be severe. I shot up into a sitting position. “I’m sorry. Did I do something wrong? Is my expression bad? I can fix it. Tell me how you like it.” I scrambled to appease him. But Todd looked horrified. His brows were drawn together, the warmth in his eyes completely extinguished, replaced by something dark, something I couldn’t decipher. His voice was a gravelly whisper. “In the Sanctuary… did you…” “I was stupid before!” I interrupted, my voice shrill with terror. “I was wrong. I’ll change, I swear I’ll be exactly what you want, just please don’t make me go back!” He squeezed his eyes shut. A muscle feathered in his jaw as he fought back whatever emotion was rising in him. Slowly, he reached out, grabbed the heavy duvet, and pulled it over my bare shoulders. The lamp clicked off. The room was swallowed by the dark. As I lay there, my eyes sliding shut, I heard him whisper into the silence. He was on the phone. “I need you to run a background check. Find out exactly what happened to her over the last five years.” 3 The next morning, a piercing scream shattered the quiet of the hallway. My eyes flew open. Muscle memory took over—I threw myself off the mattress and curled into a tight ball in the corner of the room. When Todd realized who was screaming, he bolted out the door. I threw my clothes on and scrambled after him. Evie was standing in the corridor, her eyes red and brimming with tears. “My necklace is gone! Mom gave it to me for my eighteenth birthday. I never even wore it!” My parents were instantly at her side, cooing and soothing her. Then, a young maid spoke up, her voice trembling. “Last night… I saw Miss Caroline sneaking out of her room…” Every single pair of eyes in the hallway snapped toward me. My mother’s brow furrowed. “Caroline. Where were you last night?” I shot a panicked look at Todd. I hadn’t served him properly. I didn’t know if I was allowed to say I was there. I ducked my head, my gnarled fingers twisting the hem of my shirt. Evie shot the maid a subtle, sharp look. Taking the cue, the maid lunged at me, grabbing the collar of my shirt. “I bet she’s hiding it on her!” Instinctively, I curled inward, protecting my chest and face, but in the struggle, the back of my shirt was ripped downward. The hallway went dead silent. I felt the cool air on my back. I knew what they were staring at. A roadmap of intersecting, jagged horrors. Old scars layered over new ones. Burns, lacerations, the thick, raised keloids of repeated lashings. There wasn’t a single inch of unbroken skin left. Todd lunged forward, pulling my shirt up and wrapping his arms tightly around my shaking frame. “Stop it!” he roared at the maid. “She was in my room last night.” The air turned heavy, suffocating. A flash of pure, venomous jealousy crossed Evie’s face, but she masked it perfectly within a second. My mother slowly walked around to look at me, her voice shaking uncontrollably. “Your back… what happened to your back?” I kept my chin tucked, whispering to the floor. “It’s nothing. It doesn’t hurt anymore.” Declan stepped closer, his voice dark and thick with an emotion I didn’t recognize. “Cara… you can’t blame us. Sending you to the Sanctuary… it was for your own good. To teach you. But you’re home now. We’ll make it up to you.” He paused, swallowing hard. “I’ll never let anyone hurt you again.” My mother hurriedly wiped at her wet cheeks. “I’ll buy you a whole new wardrobe, honey. We’ll get you jewelry, makeup, whatever you want. Anything you want to eat, just tell me.” Even my father cleared his throat, looking distinctly uncomfortable. “Let’s put the past behind us. You’ve matured a great deal.” At breakfast, my mother obsessively piled food onto my plate. Declan heated up a glass of milk and placed it gently in front of me. Todd sat close by my side, meticulously peeling shrimp and dropping the meat into my bowl. Across the table, Evie just sat there, aggressively stabbing a piece of fruit with her fork. She hadn’t taken a single bite. I kept my head down, eating exactly what I was given, chewing each bite with terrified precision. After breakfast, I headed toward the stairs to return to my room. Evie suddenly appeared, grabbing my arm and yanking me toward the top of the staircase. She looked at me, her eyes stripped of all their usual sweetness. They were cold, dead. “Don’t think you’ve won,” she hissed. “I got rid of you five years ago, and I can do it again. Mom and Dad’s love belongs to me. Todd is mine. You will never beat me, Caroline.” Then, her foot suddenly slipped. She threw her weight backward. “Ahhhhh—!”

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Today marks exactly five years since Troy and I fell apart. Five years to the day. I had just stepped into the bakery to check on our inventory for the week. I never expected to run into him here. He was standing at the counter, picking up a custom order. The air in the room seemed to pull tight, vibrating with a heavy, sudden silence. He was the one who broke it. “Happy birthday, Maeve.” It caught me off guard. I offered a polite, hollow thank you and turned toward the kitchen. But just as my hand found the door handle, his voice pulled me back. “What happened back then… I was wrong.” I just smiled. I didn’t say a word in response. Those ghosts he was trying to summon? I buried them a long time ago. 1. Sophie, my shift manager, was in the middle of handing him the neatly tied pastry box when she noticed me. Her face lit up. “Oh, Maeve! You’re here. This is the regular I was telling you about, Mr. Sterling—wait, no, sorry,” she corrected herself with a laugh, “Mr. Thorne—no, wait, I’m terrible with names today. Mr. Vance—ugh, I mean, Mr. Caldwell! Troy Caldwell.” She beamed at him. “He was just telling me that he and his wife are absolutely obsessed with our cakes. He came all the way across town to pick up her birthday cake.” I gave a faint, professional nod of acknowledgment and made to walk past them. But Troy apparently didn’t care for my indifference. He closed the distance between us in two long strides and shoved the pristine white box directly into my hands. “Maeve, this birthday cake… It’s for you.” My brows pulled together. I stared at the box, utterly confused by his game. Before I could ask what the hell he was doing, his phone buzzed violently in his coat pocket. He glanced at the screen, his jaw tightening, and answered it. He was already walking backward toward the door, holding up a finger to me. “Maeve, I need to talk to you. Just wait for me, okay? Please.” I stood there and watched his tailored wool coat disappear into the Boston wind. My heart didn’t flutter. My pulse didn’t race. There was only a vast, echoing stillness inside my chest. I turned around, walked over to the heavy-duty trash can by the door, and dropped the entire box inside. Looking down at the faint smudge of buttercream that had transferred to my thumb, the realization finally washed over me. It was my birthday. The fifth one since the collapse of us. Back then, a cake had been an impossible luxury. Now, it was just garbage. When I stepped back behind the counter, Sophie came bustling out of the walk-in fridge carrying another identical white box. She looked flustered. “I am so sorry, I grabbed the wrong one! I wanted to surprise you for your birthday.” She opened the box she was holding. My heart sank. This was the cake she had meant to give Troy. A stunning pistachio gateau, the top smoothed to perfection. And piped across it in elegant, dark chocolate lettering: Happy Birthday, Wifey. Sophie leaned against the counter, her eyes gleaming with the kind of innocent, ravenous gossip only a twenty-two-year-old possesses. “I hear his marriage is like, a modern-day fairy tale,” she whispered conspiratorially. “They grew up in the same country club, total blue-blood families. Old money marrying old money. He’s gorgeous, loaded, and totally devoted to her.” She rolled her eyes, leaning in closer. “I also read on one of those local gossip blogs that some trashy homewrecker tried to ruin their marriage a few years ago. Tried everything to get her hooks into his money, but he shut it down. People have no shame, right?” She paused, suddenly realizing the tension in my shoulders. She blinked at me, her curiosity peaking. “Wait, when he said hi to you… do you guys know each other? Oh my god, do you know who the homewrecker was? You have to tell me.” I met Sophie’s bright, expectant eyes. My expression didn’t shift. My voice was as calm as a frozen lake when I finally spoke. “It was me.” I was the shameless mistress who tried to ruin his perfect marriage. 2. The shock on Sophie’s face was instantaneous. Her eyes widened, her mouth falling open in a small, horrified ‘o’. I just gave her a soft, reassuring smile and told her it was okay. But she couldn’t let it go. Her questions came rapid-fire, wrapped in apologies and wide-eyed disbelief. So, leaning against the flour-dusted prep table, I told her the story of Troy Caldwell. From the very beginning. When I first met Troy, he was nobody. His mother had just passed away from a prolonged illness, his father was drowning in the bottom of a bourbon bottle, and he was a broke kid buckling under tens of thousands of dollars in inherited debt. I was a girl who had clawed her way out of a hyper-traditional, deeply misogynistic household, working dead-end shifts in a city that didn’t care if I lived or died. We were two bruised kids colliding in the cheapest, darkest corner of the city. No money. No safety nets. A birthday cake? We couldn’t even afford to keep the heat on. But back then, Troy would walk two miles in the biting December sleet just to walk me home from my night shift. On the nights I worked overtime, he would make a cheap bowl of instant ramen, give me all the noodles, and drink the broth, smiling and swearing he wasn’t hungry. We were so poor that all we had to offer each other was love. I remember the way he used to hold me in our drafty studio apartment, his arms wrapping around me like a shield against the world. “Maeve, you’re it for me,” he’d whisper into my hair. “You’re my wife. The love of my life. I am going to make something of myself, I swear to God. And when I do, you’ll never have to struggle again. It’ll just be us. Forever.” We worked side by side. We paid off his family’s debts. We scraped together a modest savings, and the suffocating weight of poverty slowly began to lift. Eventually, we got married. Or so I thought. As his career skyrocketed, he was home less and less. The overtime turned into weekend trips, and the weekend trips turned into week-long business travels. But he handed over every single paycheck to me. He begged me to quit my grueling job. He wanted to take care of me. I remember crying, telling him I was terrified I wouldn’t be good enough for the man he was becoming. Troy had looked me dead in the eye, his hands cupping my face. “When I had absolutely nothing, you were the only one who stayed in the trenches with me. From that moment, I swore on my life I would never abandon you. I don’t care how successful I get, Maeve. I’m nothing without you.” That was his gift. The ability to look you in the eyes and make you believe every single word that left his mouth. No one could escape his orbit. Not the girl who met him in the cold. Not the woman who married him. And certainly not the woman who found out he was living a double life. “Cheating?” Sophie gasped, nearly knocking over a jar of sprinkles. “You guys were through hell and back! He cheated on you? With who? That wife he buys cakes for? Wait, so she was the mistress who stole him?” She crossed her arms, fiercely indignant. “That is so sick. They flipped the script and made the media think you were the other woman!” I let out a slow breath. “Actually, they didn’t have to lie about that part.” Because the marriage certificate Troy and I signed? It was a fake. A meticulously forged piece of paper. The woman named Brooke—the old-money heiress—she was his legal, lawful wife. When I was twenty-five, I found out I was pregnant. We were over the moon. I quit my job, just like he wanted, to stay home and prepare for the baby. He threw himself into his work, claiming he needed to build an empire for our child. Sometimes I wouldn’t see him for a month. Whenever he came home, utterly exhausted, he would hand me his paycheck, and my heart would break for him. I would rub his shoulders, and he would place his hand over my small, swelling belly. “I have a family now, Maeve,” he’d murmur, his voice dripping with exhaustion and devotion. “I have to work harder. I want you to have the world. I want to build a fortress to keep you both safe.” He used to tell me he loved how soft I was. How unquestioning. How completely I trusted him to handle the outside world. In my tiny, isolated bubble of an apartment, he was God. He controlled the narrative, the finances, the reality. I didn’t understand what he meant by “keeping me safe from the world” back then. I understood it the very next day. I had found a beautiful, gently used bassinet online. I wanted to save money, so I took the train out to one of the wealthiest suburbs—Beacon Hill—to pick it up. When the door opened, I saw a glowing, perfectly manicured woman who had clearly never worked a hard day in her life. And over her shoulder, hanging on the wall of her grand foyer, was a massive, professionally lit family portrait. Staring back at me from the canvas was my husband. That was the day I witnessed the beautiful, untouchable reality of Troy’s actual family. And realized that I was nothing more than a dirty little secret. 3. That afternoon, the earth fell out from under me. I realized my husband—the man supposedly killing himself on business trips—was just spending time at his actual home. I realized the three thousand dollars a month he solemnly handed me was pocket change for a man who had recently inherited his grandfather’s massive real estate trust fund. I realized I was just a pet. A nostalgic plaything he kept tucked away in a cheap apartment to make himself feel grounded. I confronted him. I was shaking so hard my teeth rattled. But I didn’t get a tearful apology. I didn’t get an explanation. I got a cold, legally binding Non-Disclosure Agreement slid across the kitchen island. “Don’t take this to Brooke,” he said, his voice entirely stripped of the warmth I had known for years. “You and she are not the same.” My eyes stung with unshed tears. “What kind of person am I, then, Troy?” He let out a short, cynical laugh. It sounded like ice cracking. “Maeve, knowing the details won’t do you any good. Brooke and I have been matched since we were kids. Our families share boards, portfolios, legacies. You cannot compete with her on a single metric.” He reached out, trying to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. “Let’s just pretend this didn’t happen. We can go right back to how things were. You have a good life here. Don’t ruin it.” I stared at the man standing in my kitchen. He looked like my husband, but there was a stranger behind his eyes. How could the boy who once held me like I was his whole world look at me with such calculated, corporate indifference? How did I go from a beloved wife to a disposable whore overnight? I refused the NDA. I refused to compromise. I completely lost my mind. I screamed, grabbing anything within reach and hurling it at the walls. Plates, glasses, the toaster—and finally, I took a hammer to the expensive bassinet I’d dragged home. I collapsed amid the shattered glass and splintered wood, my hair stuck to my wet, flushed face, gasping for air. Troy didn’t even flinch. He just looked at the wreckage of the bassinet, adjusted his cuffs, and said, “That piece cost me ten thousand dollars.” He didn’t need to finish the sentence. I understood. Ten thousand dollars was a number I couldn’t comprehend. I shouldn’t have offended him. I shouldn’t have made him angry. But the grief, the betrayal, and the pregnancy hormones became a lethal cocktail. If he wanted quiet, I would give him a hurricane. If he wanted to protect Brooke from the truth, I would make sure the whole world knew. I posted everything online. Photos, texts, the fake marriage license. But I had underestimated the power of true wealth. With one phone call, his PR machine crushed me. The narrative spun so violently I got whiplash. My personal information was leaked. I was painted as an unhinged, predatory stalker trying to extort a beloved local philanthropist. Troy released a polished, sympathetic public statement. “This young woman has been struggling with severe delusions and has harassed my family for years. We ask the public for privacy and urge people not to direct hate toward my wife.” He publicly affirmed that Brooke was the only woman he had ever loved. He knew exactly what the internet mob would do to me. He knew I would receive death threats, that I wouldn’t be able to leave my apartment safely. He didn’t care. He just needed to appease Brooke’s family. My parents—who had only ever seen me as a piggy bank for my younger brother anyway—called to formally disown me. I became a national joke. A cautionary tale. Meanwhile, Troy played the stoic, protective husband for the cameras. He came to my apartment one last time, his tone dripping with the exhausted patience of a man negotiating with a hostage. “Do you understand now, Maeve?” he asked, stepping over a broken plate. “Your apartment, your groceries, your so-called dignity… it all comes from my bank account. Without me, you are a ghost. Like I said, just be a good girl, and we can go back to normal. Is that so hard?” Yes. It was. I couldn’t share my bed with a man who had another wife, another life, another reality. If I couldn’t fight him, I would run. Seven months pregnant, I packed a duffel bag and tried to vanish. I tried Greyhound buses. Amtrak. Cheap red-eye flights. Every single time, his private security intercepted me before I could leave the city limits. He had me brought back to a high-security penthouse downtown. He sat next to me on a velvet sofa, reached out, and pressed his cold palm against my swollen stomach. “Why won’t you just behave, Maeve?” he whispered, his eyes devoid of light. “I can give you a life most people only dream of. Why are you throwing it away?” I didn’t want penthouses or allowances. I just wanted the boy who shared a bowl of cheap noodles with me on a Tuesday night. But that boy was dead. And Troy didn’t care what I wanted. He locked the door and kept me prisoner. I told Sophie all of this in a flat, even tone. By the time I paused, tears were streaming down her face, ruining her eyeliner. She choked back a sob. “What… what happened next?” What happened next was that Brooke found out where he was keeping me. She bypassed security. She came into the penthouse. And in the chaotic, screaming blur of a physical fight, I went into premature labor. 4. The baby didn’t take a single breath. He was gone before he even entered the world. For the first time since the facade shattered, Troy looked at me with something resembling guilt. He stood at the foot of my hospital bed, staring at my paper-white face, and lowered his voice. “Maeve… Brooke crossed a line this time,” he murmured. “But you have to understand, she’s been incredibly sheltered. She’s never dealt with anything like this. It triggered a panic attack. I’ll apologize on her behalf. And I will compensate you.” His version of compensation was a check for ten thousand dollars left on my bedside table. It was less than the cost of the Cartier bracelet currently dangling from Brooke’s wrist. I didn’t even have the energy to scream. I didn’t need his security guards to lock me up anymore. I went back to a small, dark apartment and curled into a ball, hollowed out, a body completely emptied of its soul. Troy didn’t bother checking on me. He was too busy doing damage control for his real wife. Brooke had been “traumatized” by the sight of my blood on her shoes. He canceled his meetings, flew her to a resort in St. Barts, and showered her in diamonds to calm her nerves. It was as if the violent confrontation—and the tiny, lifeless body of my son—had never existed. The man who used to press his ear to my stomach and sing to my baby forgot him the moment the heart monitor flatlined. The man who promised me a safe harbor was the one who drowned me. But that wasn’t even the end of it. Somehow, rumors leaked about Brooke’s involvement in my miscarriage. The society blogs started turning on her. And just like always, Troy couldn’t stand to see a single scratch on his wife’s reputation. So, naturally, I was served up on a silver platter. Using the ashes of my son as leverage, he forced me to go on a live stream and issue a groveling, public apology. His PR team wrote the script. I had to look into the camera and confess that I used my pregnancy to extort the Caldwell family. That I had stormed their property in a manic rage, and Brooke had merely pushed me in self-defense. That I killed my own child out of greed. They even painted Brooke as a saint. The press release noted her “deep Christian charity” in offering to pay my medical bills out of pity. Troy held a press conference shortly after. Standing at a podium, looking devastatingly handsome, he outlined my supposed manipulations. He dramatically pledged his undying loyalty to Brooke, announcing to the world that to prove his devotion, he had undergone a vasectomy. Standing there in the wings of that press conference, listening to a room full of journalists applaud him while the internet tore me to shreds, calling me a murderer… something inside my brain simply snapped. The pressure was too much. The walls closed in. I bolted out the side doors, ran into the freezing November night, and threw myself off the Longfellow Bridge into the icy, black waters of the Charles River. For the very first time, a crack of genuine, unfiltered panic broke across Troy’s face. He sprinted after me, his dress shoes slipping on the wet pavement, catching my wrist right as I vaulted over the railing. “Maeve, don’t do this!” he screamed. He promised he would cut ties with me. He promised he and Brooke would never, ever come near me again. But I didn’t want his promises. I just wanted it all to stop. I wrenched my arm out of his grip and let gravity take me. It was a miracle I survived. A passing rowing team pulled me out. But the physical trauma, the hypothermia, and the damage from the premature birth ravaged my body. I was told I would never be able to conceive again. I paused the story there and offered Sophie a small, genuine smile. “Actually, not being able to have kids is a blessing in disguise. It guarantees I’ll never replace him. I’ll never forget the one I lost.” “Everyone else got to move on and forget him. But I get to keep him.” “That first year in this city… I woke up screaming almost every night. I was plagued by dreams of a baby who never opened his eyes, and of Troy’s face. My mental health was so shattered I couldn’t hold down a normal job. So, I started baking. It required precision. It forced me to stay present.” “When I couldn’t sleep at 3 a.m., I baked cakes. And slowly, the panic attacks stopped. My hands stopped shaking. Now, I have this shop. I have a quiet life.” My voice was steady, but Sophie was completely falling apart. She was sobbing, wiping her face with a kitchen towel. “Maeve, that’s… that’s a nightmare. Oh my god, he is a monster. If I ever see him again, I swear I’ll take a rolling pin to his head.” Right on cue, the little brass bell above the bakery door chimed. The door pushed open. Troy stood on the threshold. He was holding a sleek, expensive-looking gift bag. He stared at me, his eyes dark, desperate, and terrifyingly certain. 5. “Maeve. I filed for divorce.” Sophie sucked in a sharp breath, her head whipping toward me. I didn’t miss a beat. I gave him a curt, polite nod. “Then I wish you the best of luck in your next chapter.” Troy physically flinched. He was so used to women hanging on his every word, so accustomed to my total, pathetic devotion, that my deadpan reaction scrambled his brain. “Maeve, I did it for you.” He took a heavy step toward the counter. “What happened back then… I know I destroyed you. I’ve been looking for you for five years. I want to make it right. I want to compensate you.” I finally lifted my chin and looked him dead in the eyes. Five years had passed, but he hadn’t changed a bit. Still the same devastatingly earnest eyes. Still speaking in grand, sweeping declarations designed to make a woman feel like the center of the universe. But I was no longer the girl who felt like a queen just because he shared his ramen broth with me. “Mr. Caldwell, I don’t need your compensation.” “And like I said earlier, I’ve forgotten the past.” He clearly didn’t believe me. His jaw worked, and he opened his mouth to argue, but I had already turned my back, heading for the swinging doors of the kitchen. Sophie, bless her heart, immediately stepped in front of the counter, blocking his view of me. “Sir, my boss has a business to run. I’m going to have to ask you to leave.” Troy stood frozen in the middle of the bakery. He stared at the swinging door, his voice dropping to a raw, ragged whisper. “Maeve… our son. I haven’t forgotten him.” My foot stopped inches from the kitchen tile. I forced myself to take the next step. I pushed through the doors. Just as the heavy wood swung shut behind me, I heard him call out into the quiet shop. “I dream about him. For five years. Every single month, I see him in my sleep.” I leaned my back heavily against the door, closing my eyes. My fingers dug into the thick canvas of my apron straps, knuckles turning white. He dreams about him once a month and thinks he knows what pain is? I dream about him every time I close my eyes. And my son never even got to look at the sky. … Troy didn’t let my coldness deter him. From that day on, he became a fixture at the bakery. Sometimes he bought a croissant. Sometimes just a black coffee. He would sit at the small table in the corner, nursing his drink, just quietly watching me work. At first, Sophie treated him like an active bomb threat. But when he didn’t make a scene, she slowly let her guard down, though she kept a steady stream of commentary going in my ear. “Maeve, what is his endgame? It’s been five years. Where was this energy when you were actually dying?” I never answered. I just kept my eyes on the turntable, carefully piping buttercream roses. The frosting formed delicate, precise ridges under my fingertips. Just like the life I had rebuilt for myself. Beautiful. Fragile. But whole. On the seventh day, Troy walked in holding a thick, leather-bound photo album. He walked straight to the counter and slid it across the glass display case. “Maeve. Just look.” I didn’t move. He opened the heavy cover. The very first page held a faded, glossy sonogram. My breath hitched. I recognized it instantly. It was the baby. My baby. Troy’s voice was barely a whisper. “I’ve been thinking about him all these years. I kept everything. Every ultrasound printout. The empty bottle of prenatal vitamins you used to keep by the sink. And…” He swallowed hard. “Those little shoes you bought.” A violent tremor shot through my fingers. The shoes. I had bought them at a thrift store the week I found out I was pregnant. They were pale blue, with a tiny, ridiculous rabbit embroidered on the toes. I remembered Troy laughing at them, asking me what we would do if the baby was a girl. We’ll save them for the next one, I had said. There was never a next one.

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I was spiraling. My own family had gone as far as bringing in a “spiritual consultant,” convinced that I needed to be purged, perhaps even burned alive. It was a nightmare that made no sense. If they saw me use my left hand, they would erupt into a frenzy of screams and hysterics. Yet, in the next breath, they would cradle that same hand, weeping, asking if it hurt, smothering it with a terrifying kind of devotion. Even when I took a heavy iron wrench and systematically smashed my husband’s brand-new luxury SUV into a heap of twisted metal, he and my mother didn’t blink. They didn’t care about the car. They only cared about me. I knew, with every fiber of my being, that I was my daughter’s biological mother. But after the way they looked at me, I ended up at a clinic, demanding a full DNA panel. I thought I was the one who had finally snapped. When I walked into the kitchen later that day, my mother didn’t greet me with a smile. She picked up a pot of boiling water and flung it toward me, her face contorted in rage. “My daughter is dead! You’re just a skin-suit! Don’t you dare try to play me!” But then, she saw it. She saw me reach out with my left hand to steady myself, my fingers grazing the biometric lock on the pantry. Her rage vanished, replaced by a haunting, hollow sob. she turned and ran, fleeing back to her own house to “report” me to my father. I was paralyzed by a cocktail of terror and confusion. “Give me my wife back, or I’ll gut you myself!” my husband, Trevor, had hissed at me earlier that morning. His face had gone deathly pale, his eyes wide with revulsion. “What kind of freak are you?” But the moment he watched me use my left hand to swipe my keycard at the community gate, his aggression evaporated into a chilling, wide-eyed silence. It felt like a glitch in the universe. I tried to bring it up to Trevor when he got home from work, hoping for a rational explanation. Instead, it triggered a domestic war. From that day on, every time I used my left hand, my own daughter would shriek at the top of her lungs, calling me a “kidnapper” and an “imposter.” She wouldn’t let me touch her. She acted as if my skin were made of acid. I told myself she was just being a temperamental toddler. But then came the weekend trip to the city. We were at the subway station, moving through the turnstiles. Out of habit, I reached out with my left hand to tap my transit card. My daughter, whose hand I was holding, suddenly yanked herself away. She looked at me with a face full of pure, unadulterated horror and screamed for the whole station to hear: “You’re not my mommy!” The commuters stopped. They began to whisper and point. I stood there, frozen, the mechanical hum of the station feeling like a death knell. … After fleeing the suffocating atmosphere of my home, I practically sprinted to the office. I needed the grind. I needed the spreadsheets and the deadlines to prove to myself that the world was still round, and that I wasn’t the one who had lost my mind. They were the crazy ones. My daughter, my husband, my mother—all of them. I poured every ounce of my soul into my work. Using my “good” right hand, I hammered away at the keyboard, crafting a PowerPoint deck that was nothing short of a masterpiece. It was a high-stakes project proposal, and under my direction, it became a surgical strike of logic and strategy. During the board meeting, I operated the laser pointer with my right hand, articulating my vision with a clarity that felt like a lifeline. When I finished, my boss was the first to clap. His eyes were gleaming with genuine respect. “Jade, this is incredible. The project is yours. Perfect execution.” My colleagues swarmed me with congratulations. “You’re a legend, Jade!” “This plan is air-tight. No one does it like you.” For a few beautiful moments, the validation washed over me, loosening the knot of anxiety that had been tightening in my chest for days. I took a deep, shaky breath. I felt human again. And then, a pen rolled off the mahogany table and clattered onto the floor. Without thinking—purely by instinct—I leaned down and picked it up with my left hand. The air in the conference room didn’t just turn cold; it vanished. I looked up, and every single person was staring at my left hand. Their expressions weren’t just surprised—they were curdled with fear, disgust, and a primal sort of rejection. “Agggh!” It was Valerie, my closest friend at the firm. She was backing away, her face a mask of ghostly pale terror, her finger trembling as she pointed at me. “You… you…” She couldn’t even finish the sentence. She turned and bolted like she had seen a demon rising from the floorboards. She tripped, losing a high heel in the process, but she didn’t stop. She literally scrambled out of the room on all fours. I stood there, paralyzed. The pen slipped from my fingers and hit the carpet with a dull thud. What was happening? Why? Why was the rot spreading to my professional life? By that afternoon, Valerie had submitted her resignation via email, citing “severe psychological trauma” and a need for immediate medical leave. The fear in me finally curdled into a scorching, white-hot rage. This was a conspiracy. It had to be. It was Trevor. It had to be him. He must have coordinated with the entire company to gaslight me, to break me until I admitted I was insane. I marched toward my department head’s office. I wasn’t going to take this anymore. I slammed the door open with my left hand. “Mr. Henderson, I need an explanation, and I need it now!” Henderson was hunched over some files. He jumped, startled. But the second his eyes landed on my left hand—the one still gripping the door handle—he surged out of his chair. He stumbled backward so hard he slammed into his filing cabinet. “Don’t… don’t come any closer!” He was shaking violently. His hand fumbled in his desk drawer until he pulled something out and aimed it at my face. It was pepper spray. “Get out!” he shrieked, his voice cracking. “If you don’t leave this building right now, I’m calling the police!” A wave of profound, crushing loneliness swallowed me whole. I wasn’t just being harassed. I was being erased by the world. I decided to test the boundaries of this absurdity. I needed to see how far they would go. I went home. Trevor and my mother-in-law were sitting on the sofa, watching TV, a picture-perfect scene of domestic bliss. I didn’t say a word. I walked straight to the hall closet, pulled out Trevor’s brand-new graphite golf driver, and walked out to the driveway. His million-dollar pride and joy—the limited edition Porsche—was gleaming in the sun. I gripped the club, put every bit of my trauma and fury into my shoulders, and swung. I smashed the hood with everything I had. CRUNCH. The metal crumpled. I expected a blowout. I expected him to scream, to maybe even hit me. Instead, they both came sprinting out, but they weren’t looking at the car. They lunged for the golf club, wrenching it out of my hands. Trevor grabbed my right hand, his eyes brimming with tears of genuine heartbreak and panic. “Honey, is your hand okay? Did you hurt yourself?” He began meticulously checking my fingers for even the slightest scratch. “You’ve been pampered your whole life,” he whispered, his voice trembling. “How could you do such back-breaking work? You shouldn’t be lifting heavy things.” My mother-in-law hovered behind him, clutching her chest. “Exactly! The car is just metal, we can buy ten more. But your hands… they’re precious. We can’t let anything happen to them.” It was the most grotesque, nonsensical display of affection I had ever witnessed. That night at dinner, my biological mother joined us. She had cooked a massive spread of all my favorite childhood dishes. The atmosphere was sickeningly sweet. I decided to push the button one more time. As the “warmth” reached its peak, I intentionally reached out with my left hand to grab a pair of serving tongs in the center of the table. The laughter died instantly. It was like someone had cut the power to the house. Trevor’s face went from flushed to a sickly, translucent white. SMASH. The bowl of soup in my mother’s hands hit the floor, shattering into a thousand jagged pieces. My daughter let out a piercing, jagged scream. She scrambled off her chair and hid behind the sofa, pointing a shaking finger at me. “You’re not my mommy! You’re a monster! A demon!” Trevor lunged. He grabbed a heavy crystal ashtray from the coffee table, his face distorted by a murderous, primal rage, and hurled it directly at my left hand. “I’ll kill you, you freak!” I dived out of the way, the crystal whistling past my ear and shattering against the wall. A shard grazed my knuckle, and a bead of dark red blood welled up. Before I could even catch my breath, my mother tackled me. She pinned my shoulders to the floor with a strength I didn’t know she possessed. She held a bowl of dark, foul-smelling liquid in one hand and used the other to pinch my jaw open with bruising force. “Drink it! Drink it now! We have to drive this thing out of you!” I thrashed and gagged as the bitter, revolting “tonic” was forced down my throat. I ended up retching it all over the rug. They locked me in the master bedroom. For two days and two nights, the door remained bolted from the outside. Food and water were pushed through a small gap at the bottom of the door, like I was a high-security inmate. The first day, I screamed. I clawed at the door. I begged. The only response was a tomb-like silence from the hallway. By the second day, the exhaustion set in. And with it, a cold, hard clarity. If I wanted to survive, I had to play the part. I tore through the vanity drawers until I found a roll of heavy medical gauze. I began to wrap my left hand—from the fingertips all the way to the elbow—tighter and tighter, until it was a mummified club. Then, using my teeth and my right hand, I fashioned a sling out of a silk scarf and hung it around my neck. I stood in front of the mirror for hours. I practiced. I practiced how to move, how to balance, and how to do everything clumsily with only my right hand. When I was ready, I knocked on the door with my right fist. Softly. Vulnerably. There was a long silence. Then, the sound of the key turning in the lock. The door swung open. Trevor stood there, his eyes cold and predatory. But when his gaze dropped to the sling—to the heavily bandaged, “useless” limb hanging at my side—the killing intent vanished. It was replaced by a complex swirl of emotions: relief, pity, and a terrifying flash of triumph. “Honey…” His voice broke. He stepped forward and pulled me into a crushing embrace. “You’re finally… you’re finally back to normal.” The domestic “warmth” returned like a light switch being flipped. My mother acted as if nothing had happened, piling my plate with food, her smile brighter than a neon sign. My daughter crept out of her room, shyly approaching me with a spoon to blow on my soup. “It’s not hot anymore, Mommy. Eat up.” Everything was exactly as it had been. Or rather, a hyper-saturated, terrifying version of it. After dinner, Trevor pulled out his phone, his face glowing with excitement. “We need a photo. To celebrate our family’s rebirth!” They crowded around me, and I forced a smile for the lens. But as Trevor was about to hit the shutter, my daughter slipped. She tripped on the rug, screaming as she began to fall toward the sharp, jagged edge of the marble coffee table. My brain didn’t have time to process the “rules.” Reflex took over. I whipped my left hand out of the sling, the bandages trailing like streamers, and caught her by the collar with a vice-grip, yanking her back just inches from the stone. She was safe. Not a scratch on her. I looked up, expecting a sigh of relief. Instead, I met two pairs of eyes—Trevor’s and my mother’s—that looked like the eyes of the dead. They were staring at my left hand, still suspended in the air, gripping my daughter’s shirt. The illusion of the happy family shattered into a million pieces. SLAP. The blow was so hard it sent me spinning. I hit the floor, my ears ringing with a deafening roar. Trevor was towering over me, his face a mask of pure, unadulterated evil. “Monster! You just couldn’t keep it up, could you?” His eyes were bloodshot, filled with a violent disappointment, as if I had committed the ultimate sin. “Why did you move it? Why did you have to use it?!” He roared, grabbing me by the hair and dragging me across the floor toward the door. My mother didn’t stop him. She ran to the front door, threw it open, and began wailing for the neighbors to hear. “Look! Look at the thing that stole my daughter’s body!” “She’s not my girl! My daughter is dead! This is a demon!” Neighbors peeked out, whispering and pointing, but no one moved to help. Their eyes were identical to my coworkers’—filled with a superstitious, cult-like dread. Trevor dragged me back into the living room. It had been transformed. In the center of the room stood a makeshift altar. A man in dark, ornate robes—the “consultant”—was waiting, a heavy wooden staff in his hand. “I told you the spirit was cunning,” the man said, stroking a thin beard with a smug, self-important air. My mother and Trevor pinned me to the floor, their knees digging into my back as the “exorcist” began his ritual. He circled me, chanting in a low, rhythmic drone, before pointing his staff at my left hand—the hand that had just saved my child’s life. “The source of the rot is here!” he bellowed. “Burn it! Only fire can end this!” What happened next broke my understanding of humanity. They lashed me to a heavy wooden chair, binding my torso and legs until I couldn’t move an inch. My mother emerged from the kitchen carrying a plastic jug. The smell hit me instantly. Gasoline. Trevor stood in front of me, flicking a silver lighter. Click. Click. Click. He had a twisted, serene smile on his face. “Honey, I gave you a chance.” “Since you won’t go back to being my obedient wife, you can go to hell along with that monster’s body.” As I screamed until my throat bled, my mother tipped the jug. The cold, stinking liquid drenched my head and shoulders. Trevor thumbed the lighter. Click. A small, orange flame bloomed in his hand, reflected in my wide, terrified eyes.

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